Although the North Sinai governor, El-Sayed Abdelwahab Mabrouk, denied on Tuesday any presence of Al-Qaeda militants in Sinai, he also acknowledged that a group that calls itself Al-Qaeda of the Sinai Peninsula has spread calls for Islamisation throughout the Sinai town of Arish.

Several mosques in Arish, the town where recent clashes with police and unknown gunmen took place, received demands that Sinai be declared an independent Islamic state. The governor notes that these militant groups accuse people of being heretics.

At the same time as the statement was being circulated, gunmen attacked an Arish hospital, where the corpse of 19-year-old Palestinian, Alaa El-Masry, who was killed in the clashes, was located.

On 29 July unknown gunmen attacked a police station in Arish leaving two officers and four civilians dead. Several of the gunmen had also been killed and injured.