The Egyptian army announced Tuesday that it killed three terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula and blew up tunnels on the Gaza border to root out jihadists in the area.
By: World Israel News Staff
On Tuesday, the Egyptian army said its forces eliminated three terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula in addition to destroying tunnels on its border with Gaza near the city of Rafah.
The operation was carried out as part of a protracted campaign to identify and eliminate jihadists operating in the area, which has resulted in the deaths of over 200 suspected terrorists and around 35 Egyptian soldiers, according to AFP.
Starting in February, Egypt launched its “Sinai 2018” operation to try to flush out Islamic extremists from the region.
The operation on Tuesday caused “destruction of a number of tunnels in the city of Rafah in northern Sinai,” said the army in a statement reported by AFP.
While Rafah houses the only entrance to the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel, and remains Egypt’s sole point of entry into and out of the coastal enclave, the border crossing has remained closed since 2013, with only intermittent openings.
The types of tunnels that were destroyed on Tuesday could be used by terrorists to enter North Sinai, claimed Egyptian officials.
The Hamas terror organization, which rules the Gaza Strip, has poured millions of dollars into building terror tunnels that burrow into Israel, which it has tried to use to carry out attacks on Israeli civilian centers and military installations.
Hamas has thus far been thwarted by a combination of the IDF’s tunnel bombing and Israel’s construction of an underground barrier.