Egypt confirmed Monday that one of its soldiers had been killed near the border with Gaza in a “shooting incident,” apparently with Israeli soldiers on the other side of the boundary, in the city of Rafah.
The Times of Israel reported: “Egypt says one of its soldiers was killed during a shooting incident near the border with the Gazan city of Rafah, appearing to confirm reports of a deadly firefight with Israeli troops.” The Egyptian military noted the shooting but did not specifically mention Israel.
However, Israeli media accounts suggested that Egyptian soldiers had started a firefight:
Egyptian army spokesman: 'The Egyptian armed forces are conducting an investigation regarding an incident of opening fire in the border area in Rafah - which resulted in the death of the border security authorities' https://t.co/8mqscM9BWp
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) May 27, 2024
Egypt and Israel have formally been at peace since the Camp David Accords of 1978. However, Egypt has opposed Israel’s effort to attack Hamas in Rafah, and suggested that Israeli maneuvers near the border could jeopardize the peace between the two countries.
The peace with Egypt is regarded as “cold,” since Egypt still maintains hostile rhetoric toward Israel and antisemitism is common in Egyptian media. Israeli tourists visit Egypt, but rarely the other way around.
Soldiers from Egypt and Jordan have occasionally gone “rogue,” attacking Israel or Israelis despite the peace treaties that Israel has enjoyed with two of the four Arab countries with which it shares land borders.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
