Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
Illustrative photo of a resort in the Sinai Peninsula, October 16, 2016. (Johanna Geron/FLASH90)
The Counter-Terrorism Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday issued a travel warning calling on the public to avoid visiting Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and urging Israelis currently there to leave immediately.
The warning, which raised the terror risk in the peninsula from level 2 (high concrete threat) to level 1 (extreme concrete threat), came ahead of the anniversary of the Egyptian uprising on January 25.
The bureau said annual protests marking the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have turned deadly.
The warning stressed the information was not new but a reiteration of ongoing threats, and singled out Western and tourist hot-spots as being at increased risk for terror attacks.
Israelis in Sinai were urged to leave immediately, and tourists were warned not to visit the area under any circumstance.
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In this Sunday, April 12, 2015 photo, Egyptians gather at the scene following a bombing that struck a main police station in the capital of the northern Sinai province in el-Arish, Egypt. (Muhamed Sabry/AP)
Once a popular vacation hub, the rugged Sinai has been beset by violence in recent years led by Islamist insurgents.
The Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State jihadist group which operates mostly in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, has killed hundreds of Egyptian policemen and soldiers in recent years.
The jihadists also claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane in 2015 that killed 224 people.
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