Egypt on Monday said it had detained an Israeli army officer for sneaking through the border, but his mother and Israeli media said he was a civilian pro-Palestinian activist.
The Egyptian state news agency MENA said the man was a Tel Aviv resident of Russian origin who was not carrying a passport, and that his name had not been on tourist arrival lists. An Egyptian state security officer said the man was an army officer who had been detained on Saturday and was still being interrogated.
However, Israeli media reported that Andrei Pshenichnikov, a known pro-Palestinian activist, had crossed into Egypt with the intention of entering the Gaza Strip, an area that is off limits to Israelis for security reasons.
His mother, Svetlana, told Israel Radio that he was in custody in Egypt and that he had intended to travel via Sinai to Cairo to rendezvous with friends from France.
“He received his visa [to visit Egypt] and went to Eilat, intending to cross into Egypt, tour the area and then go to Cairo, but Israeli police stopped him at the border and said he had tried to cross the border illegally ... They held him for several days and they demanded he sign an undertaking not to go to Cairo, but he refused,” she said.
She added that her son was eventually released by Israeli authorities after his Israeli and Russian passports had been confiscated, but that later in the day he had called from Taba and said he had been detained there by Egyptian authorities.
“After he finished his army service ... he supported [Palestinians] ... He later rented an apartment in a refugee camp in Bethlehem to prove to the locals that there are Israelis who are in favor of peace,” Svetlana added.
Egyptian security sources in Sinai said the detainee had been gathering information about Sinai from drivers in the area near the Taba border crossing between Egypt and Israel.
Egypt is trying to reassert control over Sinai, which has suffered from lax security since the uprising that overthrew former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not