An Israeli man with Canadian citizenship was killed in a shooting in Alexandria, Egypt. Investigators believe it was a criminal act. But a new militant group says they did it because of the fighting in Gaza.
An Egyptian security source told Reuters that a man was killed because someone wanted to steal from him. The source did not connect the shooting to the victim’s ethnicity.
The Canadian government said that the man who was shot was a resident of Egypt. The ministry and the source did not give any more information.
A new group called “Vanguards of Liberation” said they did the attack in response to Israel’s military actions in Gaza and its plan to take over the Rafah crossing on Egypt’s border with Gaza. It said that the victim, Ziv Kipper, was accused of working for Israeli intelligence.
The claim said that the group responsible for the killing was named after a policeman named Mohamed Salah Ibrahim, who shot three Israeli soldiers before being killed near Egypt’s border with Israel in June 2023, according to a statement from SITE Intelligence group.
The group shared a picture claiming to be of Kipper being shot in his car.
Egyptian security sources said they do not know about the group or if it was involved in the incident.
The Canadian embassy in Cairo did not answer requests for comments right away.
A person from the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the person who died was both Canadian and Israeli. The Israeli embassy in Cairo is talking to Egyptian officials who are looking into what happened.
The shooting happened on Tuesday when Israeli forces took control of the main border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah. Over 1 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter in Rafah during Israel’s seven-month offensive.
Last October, during the war in Gaza, a group of Hamas militants attacked southern Israel. Shortly after, two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide were shot and killed in Alexandria. This was the first attack on Israelis in Egypt in a long time.
A policeman who admitted he couldn’t control himself was taken to jail for what happened.
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Canadian-Israeli man shot dead in Egypt
