Al-Arish – Ma’an – Egyptian police have arrested a Bangladeshi man who tried to enter Israel through its sensitive Sinai desert border, security sources said on Monday.

The Egyptian sources told Ma’an that police patrolling the border spotted the man attempting to climb the barbed wire fence, five kilometers south of the Kerem Shalom crossing, on the Egypt-Israel-Gaza border. The sources said the man was arrested without a struggle.

The man reportedly told his captors that he intended to enter Israel both for tourism and for employment. He also told them that he had paid foreign smugglers 1,500 to help him enter Israel, the sources said.

The sources said this was the first time on record a Bangladeshi attempted to sneak into Israel through the Sinai. There have been cases of people from China, Russia, and Turkey pursuing this route. Most often, Egypt finds migrants from various countries in sub-Saharan Africa attempting to enter Israel.