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A spokeswoman for Soroka hospital in the southern city of Beersheva said doctors were treating the injured soldier who had been airlifted from the site of the attack."One soldier is in moderate to serious condition with a stomach injury," she said.
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JERUSALEM (EJP)---One Israeli soldier was killed and another seriously injured on Friday when three terrorists breached the border between Egypt and Israel and attacked them before being shot dead, a spokesperson for the Israeli army said.
"Three terrorists infiltrated from Sinai into Israel and opened fire towards IDF soldiers guarding the border. The terrorists were well armed and carried explosive belts upon their bodies," Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich said.
"20-year-old soldier Natanel Yahalomi, was killed."
According to the IDF spokesperson, initial findinds show that the army "successfully prevented a large-scale attack on Israeli civilians."
She said the men entered Israel at Har Harif, about halfway between Eilat and the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, through one of the last remaining parts of the 150-mile security fence Israel has been building that is still under construction.
"All three terrorists were killed.”
General Tal Russo, commander of Israeli troops in the region, said the gunmen ambushed soldiers who had just intercepted some African migrants trying to cross into Israel and were providing water to the group.
A spokeswoman for Soroka hospital in the southern city of Beersheva said doctors were treating the injured soldier who had been airlifted from the site of the attack."One soldier is in moderate to serious condition with a stomach injury," she said.
It was at least the fourth cross-border attack in just over a year - violence that has persisted despite an Egyptian army and police crackdown on Sinai militants begun last month.
The latest incident underscored deep Israeli concern about faltering security in Sinai since the fall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
On August 5, Islamist terrorists staged a bloody ambush on an Egyptian security post, killing 16 border police before crashing an armoured vehicle and a truck through the Israeli border fence where they were killed by troops.
At least three terrorists on June 18 sneaked across the border from Sinai and ambushed two cars carrying Israeli construction workers, killing one and sparking a firefight with the army in which two of the gunmen died. The third fled back to Egypt.
The most serious incident for Israel took place in August 2011, when another group of gunmen from Sinai infiltrated southern Israel and staged a series of ambushes that killed eight Israelis.
Israel is building the fence along the desert border to improve security.
"Bases of terror are expanding in the Sinaï region. We expect the Egyptians to exercise their sovereignty," a member of the army chief of staff recently said.
"Over ten terror infrastructures in Sinai were revealed and dismantled over the past few months," said General Aviv Kochavi, head of the military intelligence. "Sinaï is a secondary priority on the Egyptian agenda and the channels of the terror infrastructure are currently being monitored," he added.