Israeli tourist arrested in Sinai after getting into fight with locals
Foreign Ministry says incident is being handled, as reports claim man waved a Chabad flag and refused calls to stop, sparking brawl

An Israeli man was arrested on Saturday while vacationing in the Sinai Desert, after a dispute with a local, according to the Foreign Ministry.
A spokesperson for the ministry said Sunday that the incident was being dealt with by the Israeli consul in Egypt, and that ministry officials were in contact with the man’s family members.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, the argument broke out after the Israeli man waved a flag of the Chabad Hasidic movement, which sparked the fight. The incident was said to take place in the coastal town of Nuweibaa.
An Israeli woman who witnessed the incident told Kan that the man wanted to take a photo with the yellow “Messiah” flag identified with the movement, and the staff of the campsite asked him to stop waving it around, but he refused: “They started to shove him and he fought back and a big brawl broke out…. Later, they called the police, and they asked him to sign a document and promised he would be released.”
The woman said that only after he signed the document, which was in Arabic, did they tell him that he would have to post bail money in order to be released.
The Ynet news site reported that the man has already faced a trial and is awaiting the ruling, after which he will likely be forced to pay a fine and be deported back to Israel.
Israeli tourists regularly flock by the thousands to the Sinai Peninsula, where they enjoy cheap beach vacations just a short distance from Israel, without the need to fly.
Last May, two Israelis were arrested in Sinai after they filmed themselves waving Israeli flags, while filming a video for social media. They were detained for two days before they were released and deported back to Israel.
While Egypt officially maintains full ties with Israel, its government has not encouraged a warm peace with the Jewish state, and normalization remains frowned upon there, although many Sinai businesses rely on Israeli tourists for their income.