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.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS