Following last week’s attack on the main gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel and Jordan, an associated pipeline to Israel has has this morning been sabotaged, according to the Middle East News Agency.
News of the sabotage comes only hours after reports that damage sustained to the pipeline had been repaired.
Militants blew up an Egyptian pipeline terminal that supplies gas to Israel in a pre-dawn attack, reports MENA, citing eyewitnesses. An explosion was seen in the early morning at a station along the pipeline in the northern Sinai Peninsula at Bir Abd, around 60 km east of the Suez Canal.
A station guard and his family were injured in the blast and a security cordon was set up in the area, MENA said.
The blast is the fourth attack on Egypts Israel/Jordan export pipelines since the start of the popular revolt in Egypt that led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11. According to Bloomberg, Israel gets about 40 percent of its gas from Egypt, and around 30 percent of Egypt’s gas exports go via the to Israel and Jordan route.
The Mubarak regime had agreed a gas export deal with Israel following a peace treaty in 1979. The export of gas to Israel for below market rate was deeply unpopular with Mubarak’s opponents, many of whom were reported during the uprising for exports to Israel to be stopped.
