An Egyptian military source told journalists over the weekend that a mysterious blast in the northern Sinai Peninsula last week – which had been ascribed to an Israeli drone strike – was in fact the result of an unannounced security operation to crack down on “terrorists and jihadists.”

Confusion has swirled around the incident, which the source contextualized as part of an ongoing operation. Eyewitness accounts published by Egyptian media outlets did indeed describe ongoing helicopter raids late into the weekend.

The Egyptian army has sought to uproot extensive jihadist infrastructure in the Sinai, which has deepened and consolidated since the removal of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked former President Mohammed Morsi.

The Egyptian army is placing significant blame on Hamas:

Some 600 Hamas operatives have entered the Sinai via smuggling tunnels from the Gaza Strip since the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, officials said. “We are moving steadily to eradicate terrorism from its roots,” Maj. Gen. Ahmed, a commander in Egypt’s Second Army, told the Arabic language al-Ahram Sunday. Egyptian military sources said arms used by terror operatives in the Sinai Peninsula come from Libya and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian newspaper said. Some of the terrorists caught were trained by Palestinian operatives in the Sinai, the report said.

For its part, Hamas again denied interfering in Egypt’s internal affairs.

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