Two mortar rounds were fired in the vicinity of the North Sinai governorate headquarters on Tuesday, with no injuries reported, according to an armed forces spokesman.
The spokesman said that “terrorist elements” were aiming to attack a military camp, but misfired and hit the building and Al-Arish museum.
Hassan Saad-Allah, head of the media office at the Ministry of Antiquities said that Al-Arish museum did not sustain any damages.
On Monday, tribe leaders in North Sinai presented a series of demands to a presidential panel, following the government’s plan to evacuate citizens living in the North Sinai border area.
The demands included providing new housing for families who abandoned their homes, shortening the curfew period, increasing compensation offered to the affected residents, and providing Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid with adequate healthcare.
The Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) said on Monday that 802 homes are to be evacuated as part of the armed forces’ project to establish a secure zone along the Egypt-Gaza border.
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi promised on Monday that more security and logistical measures are to be taken to evacuate the area around the Egypt-Gaza border. Al-Sisi promised the displaced North Sinai families heavy value compensations.
The evacuation comes as government retaliation to the latest attacks in Sinai, which took place on 24 October, leaving 30 military personnel dead.
Since the attacks took place, additional personnel from the armed forces and police were deployed to the Sinai Peninsula, to assist forces already present in the area in counterinsurgency operations. The government also issued a decree stating that all criminal cases involving attacks against “vital facilities”, which include “stations, power networks and towers, gas and oil fields, rail lines, road networks [and] bridges”, will be referred to military court, as per the text of the decree.
