Under the title "Alone in Sinai," an Israeli news site "zman" reported that only a small number of Israelis are traveling to the Sinai Peninsula for their vacations despite travel warnings. The site mentioned that very few Israelis visit neighboring Egypt due to security concerns since the war on October 7.
The report stated that "Li Shi Katz, 41, an Israeli citizen, frequently visits the Sinai Peninsula, to the extent that the owners of residential complexes on the Egyptian coast near Taba have become friends with her on Facebook." Katz, who has been traveling to Sinai regularly since 2015 in search of "peace, calm, and simplicity," told "Zman Israel" that Sinai has become a second home for her, a quiet refuge in nature.
She added that she returned to the Egyptian coast just two weeks after the shocking attack by Hamas on October 7. When she crossed the border from Eilat to Sinai, Israeli border guards informed her that she was the only Jewish Israeli in Sinai at that time. She noted that a police car accompanied the taxi she took from the border crossing to the residential complex.
The Israeli site indicated that "Katz is among a relatively small number of Israelis who visited the Egyptian peninsula during Israel's ongoing war with Hamas, in violation of travel warnings issued by the National Security Council, which currently classifies Sinai as a 'high threat' zone." She stated that she is "not affected by warnings from acquaintances who claim she is risking her life and should not trust 'her Arab friends'," while at the same time, local businesses in Sinai are suffering due to the absence of Israeli tourists who form the backbone of the local economy.
The site clarified that for many Israelis, Sinai is considered the ideal resort and preferred beachfront haven, where everything is simpler, calmer, and cheaper, and it is one of the few tourist destinations accessible to Israelis by land. The Egyptian government has invested significant efforts to maintain security and keep the tourism industry alive in the region, with the entire South Sinai area under strict surveillance by the Egyptian army and police.
