Click to see full-size image. By the Israeli Air Force.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced late on October 27 fighter jets were scrambled after an “aerial threat” was identified over the Red Sea in the morning.
The Israeli Air Force intercepted the “hostile targets” which did not enter Israeli airspace, according to the IDF, which released a video showing the interception.. Egyptian media reported that the interception occurred near the Red Sea town of Nuweiba.
Before the interception was announced, IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that a strike in the Egyptian Red Sea town of Taba in the early hours of the morning originated from “the Red Sea area”.
Hagari’s assessment was confirmed by the spokesman of the Egyptian Armed Forces, who identified the two targets that fell in Nuweiba and Taba as drones and said they came from “the southern Red Sea”.
“The Air Force and Air Defense Forces are intensifying efforts to secure Egyptian airspace in all strategic directions,” the spokesman said in a statement.
The blasts in Nuweiba and Taba came about a week after the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen were accused of firing more than a dozen cruise missiles and suicide drones at Israel via the Red Sea. The missiles and drones were reportedly shot down by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Israel later said that the blasts in the two Egyptian resort towns were carried out by the Houthis who were trying to harm Israel.
“The Houthis are a proxy of the Ayatollah’s terrorist regime in Tehran, which also controls the Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorist organizations,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat says in a statement condemning the harm caused by the strikes.
In his first comment on the incident, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on October 28 against any expansion of the conflict in Gaza, saying the region risked becoming a “ticking time bomb”. He also said his country’s sovereignty should be respected.
The incident shows how the Israel war on the Palestinian Hamas Movement in the Gaza Strip is raising tensions all over the Middle East. More escalation is expected in the region as the IDF develops its ground operations against Hamas.
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where’s all egypt’s air defenses and aircraft to intercept anything coming from any side in the conflict? has sisi been told by his masters to just sit down and shut up and that egypt’s military should just “shelter at home”?
i once intercepted a rubber duck