Israel issued an “urgent” warning to its citizens to leave Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula immediately citing “concrete evidence of an expected terrorist attempt to kidnap Israelis in Sinai.”
Tuesday’s statement from the Israeli prime minister’s anti-terror office took the unusual step of calling on families of Israelis visiting the Sinai to establish contact with them.
Brigadier-General Nitzan Nuriel, the commander of the anti-terror office, acknowledged that there had been rumors that Israelis had been kidnapped in the Sinai.
“We don’t work according to rumors,” he told Israel TV. “We work according to firm intelligence.”
He said it would “take some time” to disprove the rumors, which circulated all day Tuesday.
“It is very possible that at this moment, there is a terror cell that has the intention and has a plan in operation to kidnap an Israeli and bring him to Gaza,” he said.
Palestinian militants in Gaza have been holding an Israeli soldier captive for more than three years.
Nuriel said the kidnappers were likely to strike along the Red Sea coast, a favorite spot for Israelis.
“Sinai is a big place,” he said, “and it is not impossible to kidnap an Israeli from one of the beaches in the present circumstances.”
Nuriel told another TV station that about 1,200 Israelis are in Sinai now.
Egyptian police have been searching the Sinai throughout the day for any missing Israelis but found no evidence that anyone was missing, according to two Egyptian security officers speaking under customary conditions of anonymity.
While tens of thousands of Israelis routinely vacation in the Sinai over the Passover holiday, most return after the weeklong festival, which ended a week ago.
In unusually strong wording, the Israeli anti-terror office called “on all Israelis residing in Sinai to leave immediately and return home. Families of Israelis residing in Sinai are asked to contact them and update them on the travel warning.”
Israel’s anti-terror office has a standing travel advisory telling Israelis to stay out of the Sinai desert because of the threat of terror attacks. However, many Israelis routinely ignore the warning and vacation in the desert and along its Red Sea coast.
In 2004, suicide bombers attacked Egypt’s Taba Hilton Hotel, just across the Israeli border, and several campsites where Israelis are known to vacation.
Dozens of people were killed and hundreds wounded.
Israel controlled the Sinai from its capture in the Six-Day War in 1967 war until returning it to Egypt in 1982 in the framework of a peace treaty between the two nations. The desert is just across the border and many Israelis flock to the inexpensive seaside resorts nestled at the foot of stark desert mountains — all within driving distance.
The Sinai has been the scene of number of terrorist attacks, including bombings in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2005 and Dahab in 2006, which killed dozens. Disgruntled Bedouin influenced by extremist groups were implicated in the attacks.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS