The IDF has concluded that the
terrorists who carried out the attack against
Israel along the Egyptian border in August were all Beduin from Sinai,
The
Jerusalem Post has learned.
The attack took on place August 18, when
several terrorists in Sinai opened fire at Israeli cars traveling on Road 12,
just west of the Netafim crossing. Eight Israelis were killed in the attack and
the road has been closed since.
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While the cell that carried out the
attack is believed to have numbered 20 terrorists, most remained inside Egypt,
launching their attack from the cover of a nearby Egyptian military
post.
Three of the terrorists killed in Israel were wearing explosive
suicide bomb belts and one blew himself up next to an empty bus, killing its
driver, Yitzhak Sela. Another attacker was run over by a Golani Brigade jeep and
the third was shot and killed in a gunfight.
Israel immediately responded to
the attack by bombing the Gaza Strip and killing five top leaders of the Popular
Resistance Committees, a Gaza-based terror group, which it accused of
orchestrating the attacks.
The question of why Beduin would participate
in such an attack against Israel and on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza is under
review in the IDF. One theory is that the Beduin were paid for their
involvement, but the decision to wear suicide bomb belts indicates a strong
ideological or religious factor as well.