Israel respects Egypt’s sovereignty, Ya’alon says

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Saturday addressed a reported Israeli drone strike on an al-Qaeda-linked terror cell in Sinai by saying that Jerusalem respects Egypt’s sovereignty and that preserving the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty is of utmost importance.

Israel is aware of Egypt’s increased anti-terror activities in the Sinai Peninsula, Ya’alon said, and it respects the Egyptian army’s efforts to protect its people.

“The State of Israel respects the sovereignty of Egypt and is aware of the Egyptian army’s increased activity against terror in the Sinai Peninsula,” Ya’alon said in a statement Saturday. “We will not allow rumors and speculations, which have been spreading over the last 24 hours, to harm the peace treaty between our two countries.”

Residents heard a large explosion Friday in el-Agra, an area in the northern region of Sinai close to Egypt’s border with Israel.

The strike, coming after a warning from Egypt caused Israel to briefly close Eilat airport Thursday, potentially signals a significant new level of cooperation between the two nations over security matters in the Sinai Peninsula after a military coup ousted Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi on July 3.

If the drone strike were carried out by Israel, it would be one of the first instances in which the IDF has operated in Egypt, let alone Sinai, since the 1979 Camp David Accords.

Israeli officials, however, have refrained from commenting on Friday’s drone strike, which left four Islamic militants dead.

Details of the strike still remain unclear.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, in a statement posted on a militant website, said that a drone that crossed into Egyptian airspace killed four fighters as they were preparing a cross-border rocket strike into Israel. It said the dead were from Egyptian Sinai tribes and that the rocket squad’s leader escaped. A funeral was held for the militants in Sinai on Saturday.

Egyptian security officials, speaking anonymously on Friday, said that a drone fired from the Israeli side of the border had killed several suspected militants. An Egyptian military spokesman later denied that Israel was behind the attack, but did not provide another cause for the explosion.

Israel has maintained official silence about the strike, suggesting that if it was involved, it might be trying to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian military.

The Sinai Peninsula has increasingly become a base for lawlessness and terrorist activity. Islamic terror groups, based in the northern portion of the peninsula, have escalated their attacks on Egypt’s army and security forces since the July 3 coup. The Egyptian army said earlier this week that it has killed some 60 militants in Sinai since Morsi was ousted from power.

Last month, after the coup, Israel had already permitted Egypt to increase its military presence in Sinai, in accordance with the 1979 peace treaty.