JEDDAH: Militants attacked a security convoy in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing at least 18 policemen in a blast and a gunbattle on Monday, sources quoted by Reuters said.
The attackers detonated an improvised explosive device, managing to destroy three armored vehicles and a signal-jamming vehicle near Arish, the capital of North Sinai province.
The attack turned into a gunfight with the militants also opening fire on ambulance workers, injuring four.
At least 18 policemen, two of them officers, died, and a brigadier general lost a leg in the blast, several sources at Arish hospital said.
Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted by its news agency Amaq.
The prime minister’s office called the attack a “traitorous incident.”
“Prime Minister Sherif Ismail affirmed the state’s determination to fight these criminal actions that target the safety and will of citizens with its full force,” a government statement said.
The violence comes on the back of recent attacks, the bloodiest of which saw 23 Egyptian soldiers killed when car bombs tore through two military checkpoints in North Sinai in July. It was one of the deadliest assaults on security forces in years
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack in strongest possible terms.
An official source at the Saudi Foreign Ministry offered condolences to the relatives of the victims and expressed hope for the quick recovery of the injured.
The source underlined the Kingdom’s stand with Egypt against terrorism and extremism.
According to Egyptian author and journalist Abdel Latif El-Menawy, the government and public should expect more terror attacks.
“There is a constant need to develop security measures and methods of combating terrorism, and this is in line with an effort to convince the community members to be participants with the government in its effort to fight terrorism,” he told Arab News from Cairo.
“After the Muslim Brotherhood caused the displacement of thousands of terrorists to Egypt, and the entry of large (number of) arms to Egypt with knowledge and supervision at the time they were governing Egypt, Sinai became the center (for) these terrorists,” he said.
“What happened today confirms that terrorism in all its forms (is) one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.
“Therefore, there is a need to help Egypt in its war against terrorism and to (go after) the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of (these) acts of terrorism, whether they are states or organizations.”
Malek Awny, managing editor of Al-Ahram Foundation’s Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya (International Politics Journal), said the attack should be looked at in the context of top Hamas leaders’ visit to Cairo.
According to Awny, the message that Sinai is not secure suits Israel as it scares Egypt into not opening up to Hamas.
“We have to investigate Israeli role in this attack,” he told Arab News. “The attack is an attempt to sabotage the ongoing rapprochement between Hamas government in Gaza and Egypt.”
He added that Egypt will have to continue its work against terror groups.
“We have to enhance our regional efforts with our Arab allies to confront the regional network that provides finance and media support to such terror groups,” said Awny.
“Because this threat is not limited to Egypt but all Arab countries, the region and the world.”
Sinai terrorists kill 18 cops
Sinai terrorists kill 18 cops
Battered by Gaza war, Israel’s tech sector in recovery mode
- “High-tech companies had to overcome massive staffing cuts, because 15 to 20 percent of employees, and sometimes more, were called up” to the front as reservists, IIA director Dror Bin told
JERUSALEM: Israel’s vital tech sector, dragged down by the war in Gaza, is showing early signs of recovery, buoyed by a surge in defense innovation and fresh investment momentum.
Cutting-edge technologies represent 17 percent of the country’s GDP, 11.5 percent of jobs and 57 percent of exports, according to the latest available data from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), published in September 2025.
But like the rest of the economy, the sector was not spared the knock-on effects of the war, which began in October 2023 and led to staffing shortages and skittishness from would-be backers.
Now, with a ceasefire largely holding in Gaza since October, Israel’s appeal is gradually returning, as illustrated in mid-December, when US chip giant Nvidia announced it would create a massive research and development center in the north that could host up to 10,000 employees.
“Investors are coming to Israel nonstop,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.
After the war, the recovery can’t come soon enough.
“High-tech companies had to overcome massive staffing cuts, because 15 to 20 percent of employees, and sometimes more, were called up” to the front as reservists, IIA director Dror Bin told AFP.
To make matters worse, in late 2023 and 2024, “air traffic, a crucial element of this globalized sector, was suspended, and foreign investors froze everything while waiting to see what would happen,” he added.
The war also sparked a brain drain in Israel.
Between October 2023 and July 2024, about 8,300 employees in advanced technologies left the country for a year or more, according to an IIA report published in April 2025.
The figure represents around 2.1 percent of the sector’s workforce.
The report did not specify how many employees left Israel to work for foreign companies versus Israeli firms based abroad, or how many have since returned to Israel.
- Rise in defense startups -
In 2023, the tech sector far outpaced GDP growth, increasing by 13.7 percent compared to 1.8 percent for GDP.
But the sector’s output stagnated in 2024 and 2025, according to IIA figures.
Industry professionals now believe the industry is turning a corner.
Israeli high-tech companies raised $15.6 billion in private funding in 2025, up from $12.2 billion in 2024, according to preliminary figures published in December by Startup Nation Central (SNC), a non-profit organization that promotes Israeli innovation.
Deep tech — innovation based on major scientific or engineering advances such as artificial intelligence, biotech and quantum computing — returned in 2025 to its pre-2021 levels, according to the IIA.
The year 2021 is considered a historic peak for Israeli tech.
The past two years have also seen a surge in Israeli defense technologies, with the military engaged on several fronts from Lebanon and Syria to Iran, Yemen, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Between July 2024 and April 2025, the number of startups in the defense sector nearly doubled, from 160 to 312, according to SNC.
Of the more than 300 emerging companies collaborating with the research and development department of Israel’s defense ministry, “over 130 joined our operations during the war,” Director General Amir Baram said in December.
Until then, the ministry had primarily sourced from Israel’s large defense firms, said Menahem Landau, head of Caveret Ventures, a defense tech investment company.
But he said the war pushed the ministry “to accept products that were not necessarily fully finished and tested, coming from startups.”
“Defense-related technologies have replaced cybersecurity as the most in-demand high-tech sector,” the reserve lieutenant colonel explained.
“Not only in Israel but worldwide, due to the war between Russia and Ukraine and tensions with China.”
