The Israeli media revealed new details about the shooting carried out by an Egyptian soldier, on Saturday, on the Egyptian border, killing three Israeli soldiers.
Channel 7 reported that the Israeli army found a holy Quran in the bag that the perpetrator was carrying, indicating that the Israeli army believed that his motive was religious.
It indicated that the Israeli army also found in the possession of the martyr military knives with which he cut the fence at the border crossing, and six magazines of bullets.
Channel 7 saw that finding this equipment in the possession of the Egyptian soldier is evidence of the careful planned operation.
Channel 7 revealed that the Egyptian soldier walked about five kilometers from his location inside Egyptian territory until he reached the border fence, carrying a bag carrying a lot of equipment on his back.
He used one of the knives in his possession, he opened a passage in the fence prepared for the quick opening, and approached the location of the two soldiers without recognizing him.
At this point, the Egyptian soldier opened fire on them, which led to the killing of Leah Ben Noun and Uri Yitzhak Iluz, at about 06:00 AM on Saturday morning.
The last contact with the two dead Israeli soldiers was shortly after 04:00 AM, and shortly before 09:00 AM, the patrol commander arrived at the scene to change the shift and discovered what happened.
It turned out that around 06:00 AM another military station in the area reported hearing gunshots, but didn’t receive special attention, because gunshots are common in the area.
Immediately upon realizing the killing of two soldiers, several forces rushed to the scene, while at the same time the Egyptian soldier was identified inside the border fence.
The investigation of the events reveals that in the second exchange of fire in which Sergeant Ohad Dahan was killed, the Egyptian soldier was the first to open fire.
An Israeli army drone monitored the whereabouts of the Egyptian soldier inside the occupied territories, and a clash took place with him and killed him.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper revealed, in a report that the Israeli army is currently investigating why the infiltration wasn’t detected through the various monitoring tools, and why contact with the soldiers wasn’t checked every hour, and whether a weapon should arrive.
The atmosphere is faster than that, and whether the decision to confront the crossing before it reaches the Israeli civilians was correct, or was it necessary to wait and isolate the crossing until the helicopters arrived.
The report says, “This is a serious event that requires lessons to be learned in all units of the Israeli army, now, before it is too late, and before it’s too late, and this has very bad results”.
“This is the second border infiltration that was discovered late in the past three months… The first was in March when a terrorist infiltrated from Lebanon arrived at the Megiddo junction, about 70 kilometers into Israel, detonated an explosive device, and almost to flee back to Lebanon, only to be eventually killed by the security forces… This was a serious failure, only this time it was not Radwan’s skilled Hezbollah force that infiltrated, but an Egyptian soldier with AK47 assault rifle that embarrassed the entire Israeli army, despite all advanced capabilities.
Yedioth Ahronoth focused in another report on the security measures in place and the long security fence, which was equipped with the latest monitoring and follow-up devices and cost billions of shekels.
However, it did not completely prevent drug smuggling and attempts to infiltrate Africans, noting that all of these methods didn’t succeed in preventing the Egyptian soldier from carrying out his operation.
For its part, Haaretz newspaper said that the investigations indicate that the perpetrator of the operation entered through an emergency corridor closed with handcuffs, hundreds of meters away from the guard point where the female soldier and the soldier were killed, and it is still unclear whether the two dead were aware of that corridor that infiltrated.
He didn’t know exactly when the Egyptian soldier infiltrated.
Moreover, despite the hot weather, the soldiers are forced to remain on guard positions in shifts that last 12 hours, and at each point there are only two soldiers, in favorable conditions that allow them to be fully operational.
