CAIRO: Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Egyptian policemen who strayed over their common border Friday, days before a key meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Hosni Mubarak. This morning, June 2, the bodies of two policemen with the force assigned to guard the international border in Sinai were found 200 meters across the international line, the Egyptian interior ministry said. It added that the men, who it identified in a statement as Mohammed Badawi Mohammed Sadiq and Ayman Al-Said Hamid, had been shot, saying that their weapons and equipment were with them when the bodies were recovered. The ministry said an investigation was underway to determine the circumstances of their deaths. Earlier, a security source said that the men, initially identified as soldiers, had mistakenly strayed across the border during a patrol. They lost their way and crossed onto the Israeli side by mistake, the source said. Olmert will hold his first summit with an Arab head of state Sunday when he meets Mubarak in Sharm El-Sheikh, with deaths of the Egyptian policemen at the hands of Israeli soldiers likely now to be a major issue. Israeli military sources confirmed that the two dead were Egyptians and insisted they had opened fire first on an Israeli patrol before fire was returned. Army radio said Defense Minister Amir Peretz had ordered an investigation into the circumstances of the killings. Three armed men coming from Egypt crossed the border at dawn and opened fire on an army patrol 300 meters inside Israeli territory, and our soldiers returned fire killing two of them, an army spokeswoman said earlier.
We now know that they were Egyptian border policemen. But there is no doubt that they stormed against our forces, opening fire, the army spokeswoman said.
The third gunman escaped, she said. Two Kalashnikov assault rifles were recovered and nine magazines, she added. An Israeli soldier dislocated his shoulder during the clash, she added. Military radio said the two gunmen were wearing uniforms worn by officers in the Egyptian army, but there was no confirmation from the Israelis. The army spokeswoman said an investigation were underway. About 750 lightly armed Egyptian border guards have been deployed along the border with the Gaza Strip since Israeli troops completed their pullout from the territory last September. Friday s incident came only a few months after two Egyptian border guards were killed in clashes with Palestinian militants along the Gaza-Egypt border. The clashes broke out after the militants used a bulldozer to plough through a section of a concrete wall on the border with Egypt, allowing dozens of youths to rush force their way to the Egyptian side. Last month, Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter raised the prospect of building a high-tech electric fence along the porous Egyptian border to clamp down on weapons and drugs smuggling, as well as people trafficking. The Israeli army has recently stepped up surveillance of the 180 km border with Egypt, with which it has a 1979 peace treaty, and wire fencing has already been erected. The Sharm El-Sheikh summit will be Olmert s first opportunity to explain to Mubarak his controversial plan to fix the final borders of the Jewish state in the course of his four-year term of office, even without agreement from the Palestinians. Agencies
