http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/world/middleeast/2-israeli-soldiers-wounded-near-egypt.html 2014-10-22 17:46:55 2 Israeli Soldiers Wounded by Gun and Missile Fire From Egypt The attack came from the rugged desert terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, where Islamic militants have been battling Egyptian forces. === JERUSALEM — Gunshots and an antitank missile fired across the Egyptian-Israeli border on Wednesday wounded two Israeli soldiers in a vehicle, according to the Israeli military. It was not clear who was responsible for the firing. The attack came from the rugged desert terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, “We know there are jihadi elements in the desert,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military. Colonel Lerner said that the vehicle had come under fire near Ezuz, a small and remote Israeli border community, and that the military had sent extra forces to the area in response. He said there was no indication that assailants had infiltrated Israeli territory in the incident, nor was there any immediate information about the assailants’ identity. It was not immediately clear whether Israeli forces had returned fire across the border, or whether any Egyptian government forces were in the area at the time. The injured troops — a male soldier and a female officer — were from the Carakal Battalion, which patrols Israel’s border with Egypt. They were evacuated from the scene by helicopter. Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979 that brought decades of quiet to the once-hostile border, with the Sinai Desert serving as a strategic buffer. But in recent years a number of attacks by Islamic militants Militants crossed into Israeli territory near the resort town of Eilat in August 2011 and ambushed a bus and private cars, killing eight people. Israeli forces pursuing the attackers fired into Egyptian territory and accidentally killed five Egyptian officers. In protest, enraged Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The following year, an Israeli soldier and a civilian construction worker were shot dead in separate incidents along the border, and several militants were killed in return fire. Militants have also occasionally fired rockets from Sinai into Eilat and have sabotaged gas pipelines, interrupting supplies of Egyptian natural gas to Israel. Israel recently completed construction of a 16-foot tall steel border fence, stretching 150 miles from Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba north to to Gaza. The fence is intended to prevent infiltration by militants and stem the flow of African migrants into Israel.