Egypt said Monday three of its soldiers had been killed in the Sinai Peninsula during a wide-ranging operation against the local branch of the Islamic State group.

Four "extremists" were also killed, the military said in a statement.

It was the first military death toll announced since the army started its campaign on February 9.

It says it has killed about 60 jihadists and arrested hundreds of suspects since the operation began.

It launched the offensive after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gave his army commander a three month deadline in November to quash a jihadist insurgency which has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.

The ultimatum came after suspected IS gunmen massacred more than 300 worshippers at a mosque in northern Sinai the same month.

The group has also targeted Christians, killing more than 100 in suicide bombings and attacks since December 2016.

On Thursday, IS used its al-Nabaa propaganda newsletter to threaten further attacks on Christians and tourists in Egypt.

The group had claimed responsibility for a 2015 Russian airliner bombing that killed all 224 people on board after the plane took off from a southern Sinai resort.

Egypt is holding a presidential election next month, which Sisi is expected to easily win. IS has also threatened attacks on election-related installations.

Israeli warplanes hit Gaza after new rocket attack
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) Feb 19, 2018 - Israeli warplanes hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip early on Monday after a rocket fired by Palestinians slammed into southern Israel, the army said.

It did not elaborate on the targets but Palestinian security sources said several missiles were fired at farmland east of Rafah in the south of the coastal enclave.

Israeli "fighter jets targeted underground infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip, in response to the projectile that was launched at Israel earlier," an army statement said.

No casualties were reported in either incident.

The strikes followed fierce exchanges over the weekend in which Israeli ground forces killed two Palestinian teenagers in the enclave in cross-border fire.

Warplanes also pounded 18 Hamas facilities in two waves of air strikes, according to the Israeli military.

Those raids were in response to an explosion Saturday in which four Israeli soldiers inspecting the border fence were injured by an apparent Palestinian booby trap.

Two of the men were severely wounded but their lives were not in danger, the army said.

The blast and the retaliatory fire marked one of the most serious escalations in the Hamas-ruled territory since the Islamist movement and Israel fought a war in 2014.

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Jordan foils militant pipeline smuggling plot: army
Amman (AFP) Feb 17, 2018
Jordan's army said Saturday it has foiled a plot to smuggle arms, drugs and "terrorists" through a disused oil pipeline along its border with Syria. "The Jordanian armed forces were able... to thwart a plan to smuggle weapons, drugs and terrorists" through the pipeline, an official in the general command said in a statement. "A group of terrorists and drug traffickers" had used a house near the Jordan-Syria border and the disused Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) to "dig and prepare a series of t ... read more