The National Security Council on Thursday renewed and sharpened its warning to Israelis to stay away from the popular Sinai Peninsula.

“The terrorist threat in this area has been high for some time, and recently these threats against visiting Israelis have become more acute,” said the NSC, which has designated Sinai a “high risk” destination since the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023.

The NSC has classified the danger to Israelis in Sinai as Level 4, “High Risk,” the highest threat level in the NSC’s classification, which applies to the rest of Egypt as well.

Israelis are called on to stay away or leave if they are already there, “due to the fear that terrorist elements will attempt to harm Israelis,” the NSC has said of Egypt and Sinai specifically.

The peninsula, which Israel occupied in 1967 and returned to Egypt in 1982 following the two countries’ 1979 peace agreement, is one of the few foreign destinations that Israelis can reach by land. Before the war, it attracted large numbers of Israeli tourists for its pristine, calm beaches and low prices.

Travel from Israel to Egypt has dropped precipitously amid the war and the heightened threat to Israeli tourists. On October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas attack, two Israeli tourists were killed by a policeman in Alexandria. In the same city, an Israeli-Canadian businessman was murdered on May 7, 2024, under unclear circumstances.

Sinai itself has seen no terror attacks with Israeli victims since 2004, when a truck drove into the lobby of the Taba Hilton and exploded, killing 31 people, including 12 Israelis. In 2014, another bombing by Islamists killed three South Korean pilgrims and their Egyptian bus driver, only 100 yards away from the border crossing to Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city.

Meanwhile, Northern Sinai, which borders Gaza, has seen insurgent attacks by Islamist groups against Egyptian security forces, though these have become less frequent in recent years.

Gianluca Pacchiani contributed to this report.