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Report: Gas pipeline in Sinai attacked, Israeli imports unaffected

Suspected Islamist terrorists blew up a natural-gas pipeline west of el-Arish, causing a fire but no casualties.

View of the border area between Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as it seen from Highway 10 in southern Israel, on Dec. 4, 2018. Photo by Yossi Zeliger/Flash90.
View of the border area between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as it seen from Highway 10 in southern Israel, on Dec. 4, 2018. Photo by Yossi Zeliger/Flash90.

Gunmen attacked a gas pipeline in the northern Sinai Peninsula late on Sunday, according to Egyptian security sources, but imports of Israeli natural gas were unaffected.

The attackers, suspected Islamist terrorists, blew up the pipeline west of el-Arish, causing a fire but no casualties, according to Reuters.

The pipeline brings gas to homes and factories in el-Arish and central Sinai, and has been attacked several times in the past, the sources were quoted as saying in the report.

Egyptian authorities stopped the flow of gas to extinguish the fire, officials said, according to the AP. Its security forces have been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai for years.

Egypt began importing gas from Israel’s Leviathan field in January through a pipeline that includes a sub-sea section that connects el-Arish to the coastal city of Ashkelon, Israel.

“The flow of gas from Leviathan to Egypt is continuing as normal,” said the partners developing the Leviathan field said in a statement, according to Reuters.

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