BICOM

An ISIS affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula yesterday released a video in which it threatened Israel by saying it would pay a “heavy price”.

Sinai Province, which has pledged loyalty to ISIS, released a 35-minute video which shows footage of the terror group’s attacks on Egyptian troops. The narration includes direct threats towards Israel, addressing the Jewish state saying “your account with us has become weighty and you will soon pay a heavy price”. The video continues, pledging that “Jews will not remain in Palestine, we will turn it into a graveyard for Jews”.

In another section, the narrator says that “this is only the beginning and our meeting [will be] in Rome and Beit Al-Maqdis [Jerusalem]”. The clip also suggests that Egypt is unable to adequately protect the Sinai border with Israel, which is consequently “recruiting agents, and [launching] airstrikes”.

Israel and Egypt are thought to work closely on security-related matters, especially over combatting Islamist terror groups. Both have deep concerns over cooperation between Sinai Province and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who are thought to aid each other via smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border.

Since the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2013, Sinai Province has waged arms against the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, persistently attacking Egyptian military forces in Sinai and inflicting serious casualties.

Although the regime in Cairo has been the primary target for Sinai Province, the group has also made clear that it is committed to attacking Israel. In July 2016, it was responsible for firing three 2015 rockets into Israel. In 2013, two rockets were fired by the group on Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city. Sinai Province is also thought to have been responsible for a complex terror attack in 2011, which saw four groups of terrorists attack an Israeli civilian bus and several army vehicles near the Egyptian border. Six civilians, two IDF personnel and several Egyptian soldiers were killed.