At least 27 Egyptian security personnel were killed in a car bombing in the country's Sinai region, according to the Egyptian state media agency Al-Ahram.

At least 28 other people were injured in the attack, which took place at a checkpoint in Karam al Qawadees in North Sinai's Sheikh Zuwaid district on Friday, state news agency MENA said. The wounded were taken to a hospital in northern Sinai.

Al-Ahram said at least 30 people were injured.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for an urgent meeting with the National Defense Council to discuss the security situation in North Sinai, according to state-run TV.

In a televised statement Saturday, el-Sisi said new measures would be enforced in the border area between Sinai and Gaza to root out the problem, keeping it from becoming "a mass of terrorism and extremism that no one can get rid of."

He added that "the fight in the Sinai is a long battle" that will not end "in a week or two."

El-Sisi called on the Egyptian public to remember that the objective of the attack was "the fall of the state, and God willing, the state will not fall."

A militant insurgency by jihadist groups in Sinai has made the peninsula a relatively lawless region.

CNN