Egypt, Israel agree on troop increase in Sinai

“Egypt and Israel have agreed to increase the number of Egyptian troops in the Sinai border region after an eruption of violence in the area, a high-ranking security official told Reuters.

“After continued negotiations there is now an initial agreement between Egypt and Israel to deploy more Egyptian troops in the Sinai region,” the Egyptian security official said, asking to remain anonymous.

The agreement was reached during long-running talks over border security. But the official said negotiations were pushed along by a deadly attack by gunmen last week, who killed eight Israelis. Israel said the attackers infiltrated from Gaza via the Sinai region.

Seven of the attackers were killed by Israeli forces and Egypt said five of its men died in the crossfire, touching off a diplomatic rift between the two countries.

Egypt and Israel’s 1979 peace treaty allows only a small presence of lightly armed Egyptian border guards in a demilitarized Sinai and also curbs Israeli deployment on its side of the frontier.”