Gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula overnight, causing no casualties, as the army massed troops to quell increasingly deadly Islamist militants, Agence France Presse reported Friday, August 10. The build-up came after state television reported that military helicopters and soldiers killed 20 militants on Wednesday in the first such operation in Sinai in decades, in retaliation for a raid Sunday that left 16 Egyptian soldiers dead. Israel said on Thursday it gave Egypt the go-ahead to deploy helicopters in Sinai, easing the restrictions on military presence in the peninsula set by a 1979 peace treaty between the neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, Egypt temporarily reopened its Rafah border crossing into the Gaza Strip, which was closed after militants ambushed troops on Sunday and killed 16.