Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday sharply criticized Egypt over what he charged as Cairo's unwillingness or inability to take the gloves off in fighting terror attacks emanating from the lawless Sinai Peninsula.

His remarks come after the death on Friday of one Israeli soldier and the wounding of another when a heavily-armed band of militants ambushed troops who were aiding a number of African infiltrators attempting to enter Israel from the Egyptian-held area.

"The problem is not one of the size of Egypt's forces, but rather their willingness to fight terrorism," Lieberman said in an interview with Israel Radio Sunday morning.

Over the weekend, a spokesman for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said his government would in the coming days submit a draft agreement for changes in the peace treaty between the two countries -- which would allow Egypt to deploy more forces in Sinai.

The area was supposed to be demilitarized as part of the separation between the Israeli and Egyptian militaries, and has been monitored for three decades by the U.S-led Multinational Force Observers.

This is the first time Egypt is making such an official request to amend the security aspects of the 1979 Camp David Accords, and many government officials and analysts in Israel are concerned that such a move could post a renewed strategic threat to Israel's western border.

In the last three months, Cairo has, with Israel's assent, sent some seven battalions of troops and helicopter and jet-backed armor into the area to fight global militants.

Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, a fierce opponent of allowing in migrant workers or asylum-seekers, on Sunday called on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to keep soldiers from assisting the would-be infiltrators.

"The screams of human rights organizations are preferable than the screams of bereaved family," Yishai said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, IDF Artillery Corps Cpl. Netanel Yahalomi, who was killed in Friday's clash when a gunman shot him in the head, was buried.

During the Friday clash, Israeli forces returned fire, killing the three gunmen who ambushed the troops from positions to the rear of the infiltrators. One of the Israeli soldiers, a female sniper, shot and killed one of the militants when a bullet she fired hit and detonated a bomb belt he was wearing.

Egyptian security sources said the three gunmen were part of a group of eight armed jihadists who had penetrated into Israel from Sinai. The sources said that the Egyptian security services had announced an alert in Sinai on Wednesday and warned of terrorist activities.

An Israeli army spokesman told Xinhua on Friday that the IDF's quick reaction thwarted a major attack against targets within Israel.

Sinai, a vast desert expanse that flanks Israel's western border, has in the past year and a half become a hotbed of terror activities by numerous groups, some of which are linked to al- Qaida or radical Salafists.

The Egyptian security forces have launched a campaign to cleanse the mountainous desert region of terrorists in the wake of a major attack in early August that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, and almost hit nearby Israeli farming villages.