Israel reopened a border crossing into Egypt’s Sinai region yesterday after a more than week-long closure due to security threats, but urged its citizens to avoid visiting the peninsula.
A statement from the prime minister’s office said that based on an assessment at the counter-terrorism bureau, “it has been decided to allow the exit of Israeli citizens to Sinai via the Taba crossing.”
“At the same time the counter-terror bureau stresses that the threat to Israelis in Sinai remains severe, concrete and immediate,” the statement added, calling on citizens to avoid visiting the area and for those already there to leave.
The counter-terrorism bureau had on April 10 taken the rare step of closing the crossing into Egypt, citing increased security threats, a day after a series of deadly bomb attacks on Egyptian churches and just hours before a rocket from the Sinai hit southern Israel.
The closure infuriated Israelis planning on spending their Passover vacation in the Sinai, a popular destination for the week-long holiday.
On Tuesday, an Egyptian policeman was killed and three others wounded when gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint near St Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai, in an attack claimed by Islamic State group (ISIS) jihadists.
Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who is also intelligence minister, said yesterday that the decision to close the crossing was based on “concrete threats” to Israelis in the Sinai over Passover, against a backdrop of increased activity of ISIS’s Sinai branch and the attacks in Egypt.
It would be recalled that the crossing into Egypt border was closed from Monday, April 10 2017, following the Coptic Church bombings that killed atleast 44 earlier on Sunday, 9 April.
The closure was ordered by Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz, after discussion with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and other security officials, according to a ministry statement.
This marks one of the few times the Taba Crossing was shut down since its opening in 1982, following the Israeli-Egyptian peace deal. The crossing was shut down in 2014, following a terror attack on the Egyptian side of the border. It was closed in 2011 when Israel also assessed there was a high risk of terror attacks.