The owner of a shop inspects the damage after a blast in central Cairo on Feb. 3, 2015. (Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters) By From News Services February 3 at 6:59 PM
ISMAILIA, Egypt — Egyptian troops fired warning shots over the Sinai frontier into Gaza on Tuesday after a bomb exploded on Gaza territory near an Egyptian army convoy. Egyptian security sources blamed the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which immediately denied the charge.
Meanwhile, in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, a man was killed in a bomb blast hours after two devices were discovered at Cairo airport and another went off in the center of the capital without casualties, other security sources said.
The bombs in Alexandria and Cairo are part of recent spike in small bombs being planted around Egypt. Many of the devices have been so-called flash-bang grenades, designed to sow panic but cause minimal damage or casualties.
Larger and deadlier bombs have been targeted almost exclusively at members of the Egyptian police and army. Officials who spoke with the Associated Press said the bomb in Alexandria was targeted for a police patrol driving in the beachfront town of Agamy, on the western outskirts of the city. The bomb went off, apparently detonated remotely, as the vehicles moved — injuring a street peddler, his son and a bystander. The bystander later died of his wounds, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
The situation in Gaza is reflective of growing tensions between the government in Cairo and Hamas, along with a rise of Islamist insurgency in the Sinai. Security concerns have deepened since Thursday, when the Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks that killed more than 30 security personnel in the peninsula.
Hamas officials said Palestinian positions in the territory between the Sinai and Israel did come under fire from Egyptian soil on Tuesday, but with no justification. “Fire was directed in a surprising, unjustified way and without any violation from the Palestinian side,” Eyad al-Bozom, a spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry, told Reuters. Bozom said Palestinian authorities have made contact with Egypt in protest and have demanded an investigation.
The Cairo government has accused Hamas of funneling weapons and fighters to the Sinai-based militants, and last week an Egyptian court declared the military wing of the group as a terrorist organization. Authorities have accused Hamas of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been declared a terrorist group following violent protest and attacks following the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Both groups deny the charges.