Thousands of Israelis paid their respects on Sunday to the three Israeli soldiers killed on Saturday, at funerals in several cities in Israel, whose officials have promised to clarify the circumstances of their deaths.

On Saturday, an “Egyptian policeman (…) infiltrated” from Egypt into Israel shot and killed two Israeli soldiers near the Israeli military base in Harif, about 100 km south of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, according to an Israeli army spokesman.

The assailant, tracked for several hours, was then killed during exchanges of fire which caused a third victim among the Israeli soldiers, according to the same source.

Several thousand people attended the funerals of the three soldiers killed in Israel.

“I love you and miss you already,” said the sister of soldier Lia Ben Nun, 19, buried in Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” she added, in front of a huge crowd, including the Speaker of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Amir Ohana.

In Safed, in northern Israel, Ori Izhak Iluz, 20, was buried in the presence of his relatives and thousands of people who came to pay their respects, including former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The funeral of the third victim, Ohad Dahan, also 20, took place in Ofakim (south), in the presence of around 3,000 people according to an AFP photographer on the spot.

Often in their twenties, soldiers in uniform were crying and hugging each other, according to the same source.

The bodies of Lia Ben Nun and Ori Izhak Iluz were found on Saturday morning at an Israeli-Egyptian border guard post several hundred meters from the Harif base.

Ohad Dahan was killed several hours later, during the exchange of fire with the assailant.

On Sunday, the headlines of the Israeli press were all devoted to this incident, the media wondering in particular about the way in which the assailant managed to cross the barrier several meters high which runs along this border.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Saturday called the incident “very serious and very unusual”, promised a “full” investigation.

An Egyptian delegation made up of military officials and representatives of the Ministry of Defense arrived in Israel on Sunday as part of the joint investigation, a source familiar with the matter told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

The assailant would not be linked to Islamist organizations but he seems to have become radicalized, especially in his relationship with religion, she said.

“We have sent a clear message to the Egyptian authorities and expect the joint investigation (with Egypt) to be meticulous and come to a conclusion,” Netanyahu said Sunday morning at the opening of the Council of Ministers.

The army is conducting “a thorough investigation (…) in collaboration with the Egyptian armed forces”, assured its chief of staff Herzi Halevi in ??a press release on Saturday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stressed “the importance of ties between the two countries” after a telephone conversation on Saturday with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Zaki, according to a statement from his office.

For his part, Mohamed Zaki insisted on “joint coordination to take the necessary measures to avoid the repetition of incidents of this kind in the future”, according to the Egyptian army.

Egypt is one of the few Arab countries that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but many Egyptians do not adhere to this normalization.

The border between the two countries is nevertheless generally calm, although it is regularly the scene of regular drug smuggling attempts, which in recent years have led to exchanges of fire between smugglers and Israeli soldiers stationed along the border. .

Hours before Saturday’s attack, Israeli soldiers foiled an attempt to smuggle drugs across the border. No link has yet been established between this event and the death of the three soldiers, according to an Israeli army spokesman.

The Egyptian army for its part claimed that a “member of the (Egyptian) security forces chasing drug traffickers” had crossed a checkpoint between the two countries.

There followed, according to her, an “exchange of fire that left three dead on the Israeli side” in addition to the death of the assailant.

04/06/2023 22:58:00 – Jerusalem (AFP) – © 2023 AFP