Israel accused of incitement against Egypt over Sinai troop buildup claims

Egyptian officials have accused Israel of stoking tensions by falsely claiming that troop movements in northern Sinai are in breach of the peace treaty between the countries.

One senior diplomatic source in Cairo told MEE that relations between Egypt and Israel were at their lowest point since the beginning of the war in Gaza as fears grow that Israel’s renewed assault is a prelude to the forced displacement of Palestinians from the enclave.

Israeli and Palestinian analysts also warned that Israel’s government may be seeking to incite conflict as part of a plan to sway public opinion against Egypt, both to facilitate ethnic cleansing in Gaza and to advance Israel’s broader regional strategic ambitions.

Assaf David, director of the Israel in the Middle East programme at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and a professor at the Hebrew University, told MEE: “The incitement is clear. I think Netanyahu’s administration is really insisting on the plan of ethnic cleansing.

“If Israeli public opinion changes on Egypt then that will be easier. So a confrontation with Egypt prepares the ground.”

Misleading media reports

Israeli media earlier this week reported that Egypt had increased its military presence in northern Sinai, which borders Gaza, beyond permitted troop quotas and had also built new infrastructure at ports and airbases.

Israeli officials said these matters had been raised with Cairo and Washington, with Defence Minister Israel Katz on Thursday saying that Israel would not allow Egypt to violate the 1979 Camp David Accords.

But a former senior Egyptian officer told Middle East Eye that no violations had taken place, and said current troop levels and other military activity were in accord with the original treaty and subsequent amendments.

General Ahmed Ibrahim Kamel, a former head of Egypt’s military reconnaissance agency and former deputy director of military intelligence, said current deployments were permitted by a 2005 amendment which allowed Egypt to station a fully armed Border Guard battalion opposite the Gaza Strip, following Israel’s withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave.

He said military counterterrorism operations in the Sinai between 2013 and 2021 had also been coordinated with Israel.

Kamel told MEE: “As usual, Israel and its misleading media do not present the full facts, including the modifications to the treaty’s military annex. They consistently refuse to acknowledge Egypt as a partner in conflict resolution, preferring instead to portray it as part of the problem. This stance was evident during the Gaza crisis over the past year and a half.”

Sayed Ghoneim, a fellow at Egypt’s Military Academy for Advanced Studies and a former army general, also told MEE the terms of the treaty were widely misunderstood in Israel.

He said existing mechanisms allowed Egypt and Israel to adjust military arrangements without renegotiating the treaty, citing Egypt’s deployment of troops to the Rafah border area in 2021.   

MEE contacted the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), an international monitoring organisation for the Sinai created by the 1979 treaty, to ask whether it had recorded any recent Egyptian violations but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Absent ambassadors

Growing fears that Israel intends to expel Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai, fuelled by US President Donald Trump’s proposal for the enclave’s population to be relocated, have sharpened tensions between Egypt and Israel.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the senior Egyptian diplomat told MEE that relations were now worse than at any point since 7 October 2023.

He said Egypt had refused to respond to a request to accept the credentials of Israel’s proposed new ambassador, Uri Rothman, who was appointed last September.

Israeli diplomatic staff have mostly been withdrawn from Egypt and other Arab nations because of security concerns, with Israel maintaining only a minimal presence at its Cairo embassy.

Egypt also currently does not have an ambassador in Israel after it refrained from naming a successor to Khaled Azmi who quietly left the role about seven months ago.

But analysts suggest that other factors beyond the threatened expulsion of Gaza’s population may also be at play.

Assaf agreed that Israel’s main intention towards Egypt was to create a situation in which Gaza’s population could be forced into Egyptian territory.

But he said the situation also exposed differences of opinion and rivalries within Israeli political and security circles, as well as between Egypt and Qatar, which have both vied for influence as mediators in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Israel’s military and security establishment had usually been responsible in handling relations with Egypt and Jordan based on the countries’ longstanding peace treaties, he said.

Assaf said the so-called ‘Qatargate’ scandal, in which a number of advisers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office have been arrested as part of an investigation into their alleged ties with Qatari officials, raised further questions about whether the Israeli government was trying to sideline Egypt as a mediator.

Sisi’s ‘red line’

Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian activist and writer based in Israel, said he believed Israel’s main goal was to create a situation in which Gaza’s population could be forced into Egyptian territory suddenly and rapidly under bombardment.

But he said Israel was also seeking to achieve other strategic goals, including the expansion of Ashdod port into Gaza as part of plans for a new global trade route linking Asia to Europe via the Arabian peninsula, and control of maritime gas fields off Gaza’s coast.

These plans also included proposals for a new canal rivalling the Suez from Deir al-Balah in Gaza to the Red Sea port of Eilat, which would also involve displacing Bedouin communities from the Negev, he said.

“All of this represents a geopolitical challenge to Egypt and a threat to its national security. This necessitates either straining relations from the Israeli side or subjugating Egypt,” he said.

Egypt and other Arab states have repeatedly rejected calls for Palestinians to be displaced from Gaza, with Egypt proposing an alternative Arab League-backed plan which imagines Gaza being redeveloped without its population being required to leave.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has described displacement as a “red line” that threatens Egypt’s national security.

Israel is once again waging a full-scale assault on Gaza, with the United Nations on Thursday saying that two-thirds of the territory is now under forced displacement orders or rendered “no-go zones” by Israeli forces, including the city of Rafah and most of southern Gaza. 

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