On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border attacks with parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably twelve militants in four groups. The attacks occurred after Israel's interior security service Shin Bet had warned of an attack by militants in the region and Israeli troops had been stationed in the area. The militants first opened fire at an Egged No. 392 bus as it was traveling on Highway 12 in the Negev near Eilat. Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians. Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special unit police sniper and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack. The Israel Defense Forces reported eight attackers killed, and Egyptian security forces reported killing another two.
Five Egyptian soldiers were also killed. According to Egypt, they were killed by Israeli security forces chasing militants across the Egyptian border, while an Israeli military officer initially said they were killed by a suicide bomber who had fled across the border into Egypt. The five deaths triggered a diplomatic row between Egypt and Israel and led to mass protests outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo. According to media reports, Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador to Israel, but Egypt's foreign minister later denied this. Israel expressed regret over the deaths, and sent a letter of apology to Egypt. The IDF was ordered to conduct a military probe of the incident, and on August 25, 2011, Israel agreed to a joint investigation with Egypt of the events.
The identity of the attackers, three of whom were reportedly Egyptian, is not widely agreed upon, and so far no group took responsibility for the attacks.
The Israeli government accused the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a Gaza-based coalition of Palestinian militant groups, of orchestrating the attacks, but the PRC denied involvement. However, Israel attacked seven targets in the Gaza Strip immediately after the terror attacks in the Negev, killing five members of the PRC, including its leader.
On August 21, 2011, an informal ceasefire was called by Israel and Hamas after days of escalating violence in which fifteen Palestinians were killed and many were wounded. More than 100 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza into Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding more than a dozen. The ceasefire was broken almost immediately by rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israel, followed by retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, killing at least seven Palestinians, among them two leaders of the Islamic Jihad. On August 26, 2011, Gaza militants called a second truce. On March 9, 2012, Israel Air Force, in a strike on Palestinian targets in Gaza, killed the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhir al-Qaisi, whom Israel considers as "one of the masterminds" of the August 18, 2011 attacks.
The southern part of Israeli Highway 12 runs adjacent to Israel's border with Egypt. It was the scene of previous shooting attacks in the 1990s. In the late 2000s, the Israeli government decided to build the Israel–Egypt barrier, although by 2011 only 10% of it had been completed, none close to the site of the attack.
Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, militant organizations increased their activity in the Sinai Peninsula and Al-Qaeda militants groups were established, after Egyptian police had all but completely withdrawn from the northern Sinai, dominated by Bedouin tribes. During the months preceding the cross-border attacks, Egypt reinforced its forces with about 1,000 additional soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula, with the consent of Israel, after a series of five bombings had disrupted the flow of natural gas to Israel.
On July 30, militants staged an attack on an Egyptian police station in El-Arish, killing six.
On August 2, a group claiming to be the Sinai wing of Al Qaeda declared its intention to create an Islamic caliphate in the Sinai.
On August 14, 2011, Egyptian forces swept the Sinai Peninsula in search of terror cells. Jordanian intelligence informed the Israelis that they had information about an impending terror attack in the south of Israel. Two days prior to the attack, the Egyptian army captured four Islamist insurgents as they prepared to blow up a gas pipeline in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.
Israeli interior security service Shin Bet had warned of terrorist attacks being planned in the region in an area 80 kilometers long, presuming that they would take place at night. The warnings led to a massive deployment of IDF troops, and the closing of Highway 12, which was reopened only on the day of the attack at the order of head of IDF's southern command Tal Russo.
August 18 cross-border attacks and immediate Israeli response
The original attacks occurred in three coordinated stages. They were carried out by 12 militants in four groups dispersed over an area 12 kilometers long. At least some of the attackers wore brown uniforms, similar to those used by the Egyptian Army. Israeli military and police forces, in cooperation with Shin Bet, began pursuing the perpetrators immediately after the attacks commenced and locked down the area.
The attacks commenced around 12:00 pm (UTC+2) near the Ein Netafim spring, on Highway 12 from Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat, when three militants spread out about 200 meters from one another, armed with suicide bomb vests, grenades, RPGs, and machine guns opened fire on an Egged passenger bus on line 392, carrying mostly soldiers but also some civilians. Seven passengers were wounded, most of them soldiers. According to eyewitnesses, a white car was following the bus, and a group of people dressed in military uniforms got out and opened fire. The bus driver, Benny Belevsky, did not stop the bus and sped away, getting to an IDF post near the Netafim Border Crossing.
The militants, dressed in brown uniforms resembling those of the Egyptian Army, then began attacking passing vehicles, waving white handkerchiefs to fool motorists. One of the militants attacked a bus that drove by and detonated the suicide bomb belt he was wearing, killing himself and the bus driver, who had stopped the empty bus. Another militant opened fire at a passing car and killed the female driver. The same militant then fired an RPG at an Israeli Air Force helicopter, but missed. An IDF jeep from the Golani Brigade then arrived at the scene and ran over the militant, killing him. Another Golani Brigade jeep arrived, and ran over a roadside bomb. As the soldiers exited the damaged vehicle, the surviving militant opened fire at them. Soldiers and Yamam special police officers then located the militant and killed him in a gunbattle. Two other militants then opened fire at them from Egyptian territory. Israeli forces briefly crossed the border and killed both of the militants. One Israeli soldier was killed by friendly fire during the engagement and several soldiers were wounded. The Egyptian Army informed the IDF that its soldiers killed two more militants in the Sinai.
In the third attack, which occurred around 12:35, mortar shells were fired at soldiers carrying out routine maintenance work at the security fence constructed along the border between Israel and Egypt. No one was hurt in the attack.
Around 13:30, not far from the first shooting incident, militants opened fire, including with an anti-tank missile, at a bus and private car on route 90, a desert road near the border with Jordan. According to medics, five people were killed in the attacks. Seven people were wounded when another private vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile. Eyewitnesses suggested that some of the attackers may have been wearing Egyptian Army uniforms. Two IAF helicopters were called to the scene in order to evacuate those wounded.
Around 18:30, an Israeli patrol was fired on from the Egyptian border as it searched for militants. Israeli troops returned fire, and the shooting lasted for about an hour. A sniper from the Yamam special police unit was critically wounded and later died. News of the firefight interrupted a briefing by the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.