“If an Egyptian dies at the border, no one will care about him like they care about Israelis [who are killed],” the perpetrator reportedly said shortly before committing the deadly terror attack.
By World Israel News Staff
The Egyptian police officer who infiltrated into Israel and killed three IDF soldiers was named as 22-year-old Muhammad Salah Ibrahim by Arabic-language media on Monday.
While both Egyptian and Israeli officials have avoided naming terror as the motivation for the shootings, a look at Ibrahim’s social media accounts reveal that he expressed sentiments hostile towards the State of Israel.
During the 2021 Israel-Gaza Operation Guardian of the Walls clash, Ibrahim responded from a tweet by then-Vice President Mike Pence which read “America stands with Israel.”
“Allah stands with Palestine,” read a reply to Pence that Ibrahim reposted on his Facebook page, along with the hashtag “Gaza under attack.”
According to Hebrew-language media, Ibrahim was drafted to the Egyptian security forces in June 2022. His service was plagued by several lengthy unexcused absences along with repeated complaints from Ibrahim that he was suffering psychologically and physically.
Ibrahim’s friends told a local media outlet that he was upset over what he perceived as a substandard response from the Egyptian government to the recent slaying of a fellow police officer who also served on the Israel-Egyptian border. Ibrahim’s colleague was presumably killed by drug traffickers.
“If an Egyptian dies at the border, no one will care about him like they care about Israelis [who are killed],” his friends reported Ibrahim as saying.
Although his friends have attempted to frame the killings as possibly motivated by frustration over the lack of attention regarding his colleague’s death, Ibrahim was carrying a Quran at the time of his attack on IDF soldiers.
The Egyptian government and media outlets have downplayed the attack and falsified critical details about the incident.
In a carefully worded statement, the Egyptian government insinuated that Ibrahim had killed two Israeli soldiers who were guarding a remote outpost in Israeli territory, Lia Ben Nun and Ori Yitzhak Iluz, during a mutual exchange of fire.
Initial Israeli ballistics tests found that neither Ben Nun nor Iluz fired their weapons, indicating that Ibrahim had immediately shot and immobilized them.
Hours later, Ibrahim killed another Israeli soldier, Ohad Dahan, during a gun battle after he was discovered by troops in Israeli territory.
Ibrahim had in his possession multiple guns, knives and rounds of ammunition, suggesting that he was intending to carry out a large-scale attack in Israel before he was shot and killed by the IDF.