An Israel Defense Force soldier was slightly wounded in a rare but disturbing incident along the normally peaceful Israeli-Egyptian border Monday night.
The incident occurred shortly after midnight, when an IDF patrol investigating a breach in the border fence was attacked by unidentified men who threw two hand grenades and opened fire with light weapons, according to a military spokesman. The soldier wounded by the gunfire was hospitalized.
The patrol later found the footprints of two men leading to the fence and back to Egyptian territory.
Israel formally informed Egypt of the occurrence. A spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv dismissed it as of little consequence.
The spokesman told Voice of Israel Radio Tuesday that this was a “routine incident of infiltration which happens sometimes on borders between countries.”
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