[8] Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special unit police sniper and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack.

[11] The five deaths triggered a diplomatic row between Egypt and Israel and led to mass protests outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

[12] The IDF was ordered to conduct a military probe of the incident,[13][14] and on August 25, 2011, Israel agreed to a joint investigation with Egypt of the events.

[20] On August 21, 2011, an informal ceasefire was called by Israel and Hamas after days of escalating violence in which fifteen Palestinians were killed and many were wounded.

[21] The ceasefire was broken almost immediately by rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israel, followed by retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, killing at least seven Palestinians, among them two leaders of the Islamic Jihad.

[citation needed] In the late 2000s, the Israeli government decided to build the Israel–Egypt barrier, although by 2011 only 10% of it had been completed, none close to the site of the attack.

[30] Two days prior to the attack, the Egyptian army captured four Islamist insurgents as they prepared to blow up a gas pipeline in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

[31] Israeli interior security service Shin Bet had warned of terrorist attacks being planned in the region in an area 80 kilometers long, presuming that they would take place at night.

[2] Israeli military and police forces, in cooperation with Shin Bet, began pursuing the perpetrators immediately after the attacks commenced and locked down the area.

[33] The attacks commenced around 12:00 pm (UTC+2) near the Ein Netafim spring, on Highway 12 from Mitzpe Ramon to Eilat, when three militants spread out about 200 meters from one another,[10] armed with suicide bomb vests, grenades, RPGs, and machine guns opened fire on an Egged passenger bus on line 392, carrying mostly soldiers but also some civilians.

[34] According to eyewitnesses, a white car was following the bus, and a group of people dressed in military uniforms got out and opened fire.

[35] The militants, dressed in brown uniforms resembling those of the Egyptian Army, then began attacking passing vehicles, waving white handkerchiefs to fool motorists.

[10] In the third attack, which occurred around 12:35, mortar shells were fired at soldiers carrying out routine maintenance work at the security fence constructed along the border between Israel and Egypt.

[33][40] Around 13:30, not far from the first shooting incident, militants opened fire, including with an anti-tank missile, at a bus and private car on route 90, a desert road near the border with Jordan.

News of the firefight interrupted a briefing by the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.

[68] At 18:00, the Israeli Air Force,[71] working with Shin Bet,[7] bombed a building used by Popular Resistance Committees' members in Rafah.

Among the dead was the PRC's commander Kamal al-Nairab and military chief Immad Hammad,[72][73][74] who was suspected by Shin Bet of having planned the attacks.

A home near the former Palestinian intelligence headquarters was hit, reportedly killing one and wounding seventeen, and starting a large fire in the area.

[21][78][79] The Israeli Air Force bombed two tunnels and one warehouse used for manufacturing weapons in southern Gaza and one site used for militant activities.

The tunnels had been used to allow assailants to infiltrate Israel and carry out attacks according to a statement released by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit.

[23] After the Israeli Air Force attacked targets in the Gaza Strip, at least 10 rockets were fired into southern Israel, hitting the cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba, causing no injuries.

[83][84] The Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade, a radical Islamic group affiliated with Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted five of them, but one hit a residential area and killed Israeli Yossi Shushan.

No one was in the school because "the city had canceled educational activities in light of the missile attacks that Palestinians in Gaza have been launching against the south in the last few days" according to Beersheba deputy mayor Heftziba Zohar.

In Gaza, a senior Islamic Jihad member who funded the cross-border attacks was killed and two others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a car.

According to Palestinian media, the IDF fired shells at a militant squad in eastern Gaza after a rocket attack, but the cell escaped the strike.

The two Islamic Jihad militants who had launched the mortar attack on the Erez Crossing were killed by an airstrike as traveled on their motorbike in northern Gaza.

The demonstrators threw fire crackers at the building, unfurled a Palestinian flag, and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in response to the killings.

[109] In October 2011, The New York Times reported that Israel had sent a letter of apology to Egypt for the killing of the Egyptian security officers by Israeli forces.

The decision not to close the road on the morning of the attack in spite of warnings from the Shin Beth is characterised as “understandable error of judgment, and definitely not a manifestation of carelessness”, whereas the appearance of the defense minister and the chief of staff at the scene of the incident while terrorists were still in the area is considered a serious security blunder that nearly culminated in another disaster.