Egypt's military placed forces on high alert in two parts of the Sinai peninsula Friday, hours after presumed Islamist militants launched an early morning assault on Egyptian security forces near the border with Israel, killing one. The country also shuttered its border with the Gaza Strip at Rafah, turning away some 200 Palestinians trying to leave the coastal enclave.State TV reported that the army had declared a "state of emergency," but the military later issued a statement denying the report, but confirming the high alert status.
In the early hour of Friday, a rocket attack on a police station in the border city of Rafah left a soldier dead and two others wounded, military sources said. According to witnesses who spoke to AFP, the building attacked was a military intelligence installation. Egyptian media identified the soldier killed Friday as 22-year-old Yehia Mohammed Abu al-Magd.