Canadian man shot dead in Egypt amid rising tensions

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A Canadian “of Jewish-Israeli descent” was shot dead during a robbery in the Egyptian city of Alexandria and authorities are investigating the incident as a criminal case, a security source said Tuesday.

The security source told Reuters the man was killed “with the motive of robbery.” The source made no connection between the shooting and the ethnic background of the dead man.

The Interior Ministry confirmed the shooting and said the man was a permanent resident of Egypt. Neither the ministry nor the source provided further details.

A statement circulated on social media claiming the killing was carried out by a previously unknown group called the Liberation Vanguards. However, security sources said they had no information about the existence of such a group or whether it was involved in the incident.

A day after the Gaza war began last October following an attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel, two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide were shot dead in Alexandria. It was the first such attack on Israelis in Egypt in decades.

A police officer who said he “lost control” was taken into custody over that incident.

The shooting occurred on Tuesday as Israeli forces seized the main Gaza-Egypt border crossing in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge during the seven-month Israeli offensive.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing into the Gaza Strip, a key terminal for the entry of humanitarian aid that was closed over the weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers nearby .

However, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said no aid had yet arrived and there was no one on the Palestinian side to receive it. During an incursion by an Israeli armored brigade on Tuesday, workers who captured the nearby Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which remains closed, fled.

This limited incursion did not appear to be the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Rafah that Israel had repeatedly promised. But the prolonged closure of the two main crossings could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the United Nations says there is already “full-blown famine” in the north.

The United States suspended a bomb shipment to Israel last week over fears that Israel is close to deciding to launch a major attack on Rafah, further deepening divisions between the two close allies.