JERUSALEM — As Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants continued to clash Friday, Egypt expressed anger over the deaths of three of its soldiers apparently killed by Israeli helicopters pursuing militants across the Israeli-Egyptian border a day earlier.
The incident threatened to destabilize relations between Israel and Egypt, already tense in the wake of the overthrow in February of Hosni Mubarak as Egyptian president.
The Egyptian government submitted a formal protest to Israel and called for an urgent probe into the deaths of the soldiers, Egyptian state news agency MENA said.
Egypt also closed until further notice the al-Awja crossing between Egypt and Israel, used for the passage of trade and exports, MENA said.
Egyptian voices outside the government also condemned the Israeli action.
“The Zionist attacks that killed three Egyptian soldiers on Thursday need a different response than the pre-Jan. 25 revolution period,” said Saad el-Katatni, general secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, referring to the popular protests that brought down Mubarak. “Zionists should realize that Egyptian blood now has a price, and it’s a very high price after the success of our blessed revolution.”
A small demonstration broke out in front of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
Israeli officials called the deaths regrettable but said Egypt must do more to bring the Sinai under its control.
The violence began Thursday with a coordinated terrorist attack in southern Israel that killed eight people, including six civilians and two Israeli soldiers. Israel says the attackers originated in Gaza and infiltrated into Israel through the Sinai desert.
“We’ve been saying for months that the Sinai is becoming a no-man’s land, a Wild West where criminal gangs and terror groups have operated above the law,” said an Israeli government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “We would hope that these events would serve as an impetus to create arrangements so they won’t reoccur. Ultimately we’d like to see effective Egyptian control over the peninsula.”
The overall death toll from the violence that began Thursday is now 25 people over two days, officials said.
