Two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide shot dead in Alexandria
Ruth Michaelson
Two Israeli tourists and an Egyptian national have been shot dead in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria by a police official, according to the news website Cairo24.
The attack reportedly took place at the Serapeum of Alexandria, an ancient Roman monument in the centre of the coastal city.
Cairo24, a news website with links to the Egyptian intelligence services, said a police officer working with the security service in the area fired random shots “from his personal weapon” at an Israeli tour group that was visiting the shrine.
“The police officer was immediately arrested and legal proceedings will be taken against him,” they said. One injured person was transferred to hospital for treatment.
The attack marks a further escalation in connection with events in Gaza, including a rare incursion by Palestinian militants into Israeli territories bordering the Gaza Strip and an ongoing exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military on Israel’s northern border.
Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979 and have forged far closer public relations in recent years, with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pictured alongside the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in close talks on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in 2017. Egyptian officials, particularly the top intelligence official Abbas Kamel, have also assumed a leading role in mediating talks with Palestinian militant groups in an effort to cool relations in Gaza, despite Egypt closing its border with the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian government’s decision to increasingly and publicly display their warm relations with their Israeli counterparts has come in tandem with a clampdown on protests and free expression, curtailing protests in support of Palestinian rights that were previously considered an essential outlet for the sentiment on the Egyptian street.
Young Israelis have told of fleeing a dance party in the early hours of Saturday as Hamas gunmen, backed by rocket barrages, entered towns and villages by the border.
The outdoor rave was attended by several hundred people near the Israeli kibbutz of Reim, witnesses said. Footage on social media showed dozens of people running through fields and along a road, escaping militants as gun shots were heard.
“The music stopped and there was a rocket siren,” a young woman named Ortal told Israel’s N12 News television. “Suddenly out of nowhere, they started shooting.”
Another partygoer, Esther Borochov, said a car had rammed her vehicle as she tried to flee before a young man told her and her friend to jump into his vehicle before he was shot point blank. She played dead until she was rescued.
“I couldn’t move my legs,” she told Reuters at the hospital. “Soldiers came and took us away to the bushes.”
Another partygoer said: “We were in the middle of a rave party and suddenly we were shot at from all sides.”
On Sunday, families continued to search for young people who were missing from the party.
The Israeli embassy in London confirmed to the BBC that a British citizen, Jack Marlowe, was missing. The BBC reported that his mother said he had been working as security staff at the dance party.
The UK home secretary said she expected the police to halt expressions of support for Hamas in light of the events in Israel.
Whenever Israel is attacked, Islamists and other racists use Israeli defensive measures as a pretext to stir up hatred against British Jews. Yesterday I spoke with @CST_UK to ensure the government is doing everything necessary for the protection of our Jewish communities. 1/2
There must be zero tolerance for anti-semitism or glorification of terrorism on the streets of Britain. I expect the police to use the full force of the law against displays of support for Hamas, other proscribed terrorist groups or attempts to intimidate British Jews. 2/2
Palestinian Authority calls for emergency Arab League meeting
The Palestinian Authority submitted a memorandum on Sunday calling for an emergency Arab League meeting of foreign ministers, according to WAFA, the Palestinian news agency.
The Arab League ambassador, Muhannad Al-Aklouk, said the request for the meeting came in light of the “brutal and ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, including the escalation of the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by thousands of settlers”.
A senior spokesperson from the militant Palestinian group Hamas said it was not attacking civilians, despite claims by Amnesty International and other rights groups.
Fighters from Hamas’s armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, yesterday launched an unprecedented incursion into territories around the Gaza strip, capturing at least 100 Israelis, according to Hamas.
Footage circulating on social media showed terrified captives, including mothers huddling with their children, in the custody of Palestinian militant groups.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said yesterday: “We are deeply alarmed by the mounting civilian death tolls in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to abide by international law and make every effort to avoid further civilian bloodshed. Under international humanitarian law all sides in a conflict have a clear obligation to protect the lives of civilians caught up in the hostilities.”
Responding today while speaking to Al Jazeera, the senior Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan said his group was not attacking civilians.
“You have to differentiate between settlers and civilians. Settlers attacked Palestinians … We hope that Amnesty has humility to send us more developed weapons to attack only the soldiers,” he said, per Al Jazeera.
Hamdan claimed that civilians living across towns near the Israeli border with Gaza, which has long hemmed in more than 2 million people, could also be considered settlers, comparable to the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers living across Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
“We are not targeting civilians on purpose. We have declared settlers are part of the occupation and part of the armed Israeli force. They are not civilians,” he said.
An Israeli military official said “hundreds of terrorists” had been killed and dozens captured amid ongoing fighting with Hamas militants in Gaza and southern Israel.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari spoke to reporters on Sunday, more than 24 hours after the Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented assault into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking hostages back into blockaded Gaza as the group launched thousands of rockets.
Israel is battling militants in the south and launching airstrikes across Gaza that have levelled buildings.
At least 313 Palestinians have been killed, including 20 children, and nearly 2,000 wounded as a result of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza since Saturday, the Palestinian authority health ministry said on Sunday morning. Seven people were also killed by Israeli army fire in the West Bank, including a child, it added.
Media in Israel, citing rescue service officials, said at least 300 Israelis were killed, including 26 soldiers, and more than 1,800 wounded. An update on Israeli figures was expected on Sunday.
The Israeli military said a “substantial” number of civilians and soldiers were being held hostage in Gaza.
The Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said two Thai nationals had died.
Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, said the country was experiencing “a reality that has become a nightmare”.
She told BBC Breakfast: “Israel is in a war that Hamas started yesterday. Calculated. Planned. Targeting Israelis, targeting civilians, targeting innocent children.”
She added: “We saw prime minister Sunak, we saw President Biden yesterday, they’re supporting Israel’s right for self-defence, because we are in a reality that has become a nightmare. We can’t do anything else … we need to protect our people.”
“This is a necessity war. [Israel] wasn’t expecting this to happen [but] we need to make sure the infrastructure of terrorism is 100% destroyed.”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said the country is embarking on a “long and difficult war” after a surprise attack by Palestinian militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip led to hundreds of deaths, the seizure of dozens of Israeli hostages, and sparked fears of a regional escalation.
On Sunday morning, as Israelis struggled to comprehend the scale of the attack the day before, the possibility of a ground invasion into Gaza and wider conflagration with Hezbollah in Lebanon loomed large. The Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah said it had fired rockets and artillery into northern Israel “in solidarity” with the Palestinian people.
