Israel has formally apologized to Egypt for the killing of six Egyptian police officers during a cross-border shootout with militants suspected of carrying out deadly attacks in Israel. Israeli Prime Minsiter Ehud Barak issued the apology after a joint Israeli-Egyptian investigation.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr stated that Israel expressed “deep regret and apology” and issued condolences to the families of the police officers shot by Israeli security forces along its shared border in August. The incident sparked a diplomatic spat between Israel and Egypt. Barak said in a statement that the militants who killed eight Israelis prior to the shootout had “intended to murder Israeli civilians and ruin the peaceful relations between Israel and Egypt.”

Dangerous Activation on The Sinai Israel Egypt Border

Egyptian warplanes are meanwhile patrolling the Sinai without Israeli consent, despite a 1979 peace treaty limiting Egypt’s military presence in the peninsula, Egypt’s air force chief said yesterday. Parts of the Sinai have been off-limits to Egyptian troops under the terms of the 1979 treaty by which Israel agreed to end its occupation but in recent months the Egyptian army has deployed reinforcements with Israeli consent to tackle suspected Islamist militants.

Egypt : Sinai is our land

“Sinai is our land, and we do not need permission to increase our forces on our land, not from Israel or any other country” stated Egyptian General Reda Hafiz in comments carried by the official MENA news agency. “Egyptian planes conduct patrols to secure all Egypt’s borders, including the eastern border,” he said. Israeli officials said in August that their government had approved an increase in Egyptian troop numbers in the Sinai after a series of deadly attacks in Israel were blamed on militants operating out of the territory. The attacks on Aug. 18 came as the Israel military carried out an operation against suspected Islamist militants implicated in a series of attacks on police stations in the Sinai and on a pipeline that exports gas to Israel.

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