Despite the serious attack on the Israeli-Egyptian border, during which an Egyptian policeman entered Israeli territory and killed 3 IDF soldiers, there is no danger to Israel’s relations with Egypt, according to a senior political official in Jerusalem.
According to the senior source, “the relations between Israel and Egypt are strategic and the attack against IDF soldiers was a terrorist incident by a single terrorist that no organization was behind.
Israel and Egypt understand the attempt of extremist terrorist elements to damage the peace agreement between them and they will not fall into this trap,” with this, the senior official says, Israel treats the attack very seriously and demands from Egypt a thorough investigation into the case and the adoption of new and strict security measures at the border with Israel.
Israel transferred the body of the terrorist police officer Muhammad Saleh to Egypt and he was quickly buried in a limited funeral in Cairo.
The Egyptian security officials are conducting an intensive investigation to find out his motives for the attack.
They arrested several of his family members and friends in the Egyptian border guard for questioning.
The assessment of the Israeli security officials is that this is an extremist Islamic activist who acted alone, on his Facebook page there were posts that supported the Palestinian struggle against Israel and it seems that the Egyptians made a big mistake when they placed him on the border with Israel.
Egypt has not yet apologized to Israel and to the families of the murdered, nor has it changed its official statement in which it claimed that the terrorist entered Israeli territory during a pursuit of drug smugglers.
In the security channels between Egypt and Israel, the Egyptians make it clear that the official announcement they published is for internal purposes to maintain the stability of the regime and prevent unrest on the Egyptian street.
The Palestinians are very satisfied with the terrorist attack carried out by the Egyptian terrorist and call him a “hero”, the terrorist organizations opened a mourning house in his honor in the Jenin refugee camp and on social media they brag that he managed to surprise kill three IDF soldiers.
They see the attack as another serious blow to Israeli deterrence.
In the Egyptian street, the terrorist policeman is called “Suleiman Khater” after the Egyptian soldier Suleiman Khater who shot and killed 7 Israeli tourists including 4 children in October 1985, in Ras Burka in South Sinai.
The Palestinian terrorist organizations see the attack as decisive proof of their claim that the Arab nations do not want peace and normalization with Israel and that the Arab rulers who signed agreements with Israel represent only themselves and not the feelings of the Arab masses who hate Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians.
From the various publications in the Arab media and the moods on social networks it is clear that the street in Arab countries supports the terrorist attack carried out by the Egyptian policeman, the Arab street is largely opposed to Israel’s peace and normalization agreements with Arab countries and it treats Israel as an enemy, the opposition is against the background of the fact that these agreements did not lead to a solution to the problem Palestinian and economic prosperity and regional stability.
The security cooperation between Israel and Egypt is at a very high and close level and Israel and Egypt have no interest in harming it.
The peace agreement with Egypt is a very important element in Israel’s national security concept, Egypt acts as a factor that restrains the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and as a mediator between them and Israel in times of crisis.
Israel and Egypt are working together against radical Islam with an emphasis on the ISIS branch in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel agreed to a change in the military annex of the peace agreement with Egypt so that it could send additional military forces to the Sinai Peninsula to fight against the terrorists from the ISIS branch.
Israel is awaiting the results of the joint investigation by the IDF and the Egyptian army into the circumstances of the attack and then the necessary conclusions will be drawn, both the IDF and the Egyptian army will change, as we will now see, the deployment and security measures along the long border strip of more than 200 km.
Israel demands that the Egyptian security forces screen all the policemen and soldiers stationed at the border with Israel and make sure that extremist Muslims do not serve in the area.
Israel should adopt this demand from the Jordanian army too, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that there will be attempts to imitate the Egyptian terrorist also on Jordan’s border with Israel.
