The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai, is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Sinai has a land area of about 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north.
Taba is an Egyptian town near the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. Taba is the location of one of Egypt's busiest border crossings. It is the northernmost resort of Egypt's Red Sea Riviera.
Sharm El Sheikh, alternatively rendered Sharm el-Sheikh, Sharm el Sheikh, or Sharm El-Sheikh, is an Egyptian city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 13,000 as of 2023. Sharm El Sheikh is the administrative hub of Egypt's South Sinai Governorate, which includes the smaller coastal towns of Dahab and Nuweiba as well as the mountainous interior, St. Catherine and Mount Sinai. It was historically a fishing town and military base, and was developed into a commercial and tourist-centric city in 1968 by Israel. Today, the city and holiday resort is a significant centre for tourism in Egypt, while also attracting many international conferences and diplomatic meetings.
South Sinai Governorate is the least populated governorate of Egypt. It is located in the east of the country, encompassing the southern half of the Sinai Peninsula. Saint Catherine's Monastery, an Eastern Orthodox Church monastery and UNESCO World Heritage Site of world renown, is located in the central part of the governorate.
The 2005 Sharm El Sheikh bombings were committed by Islamist group Abdullah Azzam Brigades on 23 July 2005 in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm El Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Eighty-eight people were killed by the three bombings, the majority of them Egyptians, and over 200 were injured, making the attack the deadliest terrorist action in the history of Egypt, until it was surpassed by the 2017 Sinai mosque attack.
The 2004 Sinai bombings were three bomb attacks targeting tourist hotels in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, on 7 October 2004. The attacks left 34 people dead and 171 injured.
Suleiman Mohammed Abdul-Hamid Khater was an Egyptian soldier who committed the Ras Burqa massacre of October 5, 1985, when he opened fire on Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula, killing seven of them, as well as an Egyptian police officer. While Israel demanded that he be harshly punished, he enjoyed widespread support in Egypt and throughout the Arab world for his actions. Khater was found dead in January 1986, hanged in his jail cell, and the cause of his death was officially determined to be suicide. Many suspected that the Egyptian authorities killed him and staged a "suicide" as a convenient escape from their political dilemma.
The Sinai bus crash was a bus accident in the Sinai Peninsula in August 2006 which left twelve Israeli tourists dead. The tourists, who were Israeli Arabs, were riding a chartered bus as part of a convoy of eight buses carrying Arab tourists. The bus overturned and landed upside down between Nuweiba and Taba. The survivors claimed the driver intentionally crashed the bus and the incident was a terrorist attack.
Ras Burqa, is a small bay on the Red Sea in the district of Nuwaiba, Egypt.
Terrorism in Egypt in the 20th and 21st centuries has targeted the Egyptian government officials, Egyptian police and Egyptian army members, tourists, Sufi Mosques and the Christian minority. Many attacks have been linked to Islamic extremism, and terrorism increased in the 1990s when the Islamist movement al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya targeted high-level political leaders and killed hundreds – including civilians – in its pursuit of implementing traditional Sharia law in Egypt.
The following is a partial list of civilian casualties in the Second Intifada.
Events in the year 1985 in Israel.
The Victims of Acts of Terror Memorial in Israel is a monument to civilian Jewish and non-Jewish victims of terrorism in modern Israel and the pre-state Land of Israel, from 1851 to the present. The memorial was established in 1998 in the National Civil Cemetery of the State of Israel on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. At the same time, Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Remembrance Day, was officially renamed the Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror.
The Ein Ofarim killings was an attack by Palestinian Fedayeen, which occurred on Wednesday night, 12 September 1956.
The Negev desert road ambush was a terrorist attack which occurred on Thursday, 4 October 1956 at Highway 25, Israel when a squad of 10 armed Palestinian fedayeen fired at two civilian vehicles. As a result, 5 Israeli civilians were killed and 1 was injured.
The Misgav Am hostage crisis, which began during the night of April 7, 1980, was a raid carried out by a squad of five Palestinian militants belonging to the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front militant organization, on the northern Israeli kibbutz of Misgav Am in which the militants captured a group of toddlers and babies in the children's sleeping quarters of the kibbutz and held them as hostages. The event ended the next day with the takeover of the terrorist stronghold by Israeli special forces.
The murder of the Aroyo children was a terrorist attack which occurred on 2 January 1971, in which two Israeli children were killed when Palestinian militants threw a hand grenade into the moving car of the Aroyo family which was touring the Gaza Strip. The attack was a turning point in the way Israel began relating towards terrorist threats originating from the Gaza Strip. Following the attack Israel launched an extensive counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip.
The 2014 Taba bus bombing was a terrorist attack on a tourist coach in Taba, Egypt on 16 February 2014. The bus had been parked, waiting to cross into Israel at the Taba Border Crossing, when a lone suicide bomber entered the open bus and detonated his explosives. Four people – three South Koreans and the Egyptian bus driver were killed, and 17 others injured.
At 1:50 PM EET on 24 November 2017, the al-Rawda mosque was attacked by roughly 40 gunmen during Friday prayers. The mosque is located in the village of Al-Rawda east of the town of Bir al-Abed in Egypt's North Sinai Governorate. It is one of the main mosques associated with the Jaririya Sufi order, one of the largest Sufi orders in North Sinai. The Jaririya order is named for its founder, Sheikh Eid Abu Jarir, who was a member of the Sawarka tribe and the Jarira clan. The Jarira clan resides in the vicinity of Bir al-Abed. The attack killed 311 people and injured at least 128, making it the deadliest attack in Egyptian history. It was the second-deadliest terrorist attack of 2017, after the Mogadishu bombings on 14 October. The attack was universally condemned by many world leaders and organizations.
