Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s dispatch includes my interview with Robert Springborg, as well as reports on Egypt and the regional wars, the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Air Force, militarization of civil service and society, media reshuffles, British arms exports to Egypt, prisons, and migration.

📁 Sisi’s Weakness Makes Him More Dangerous

I recently caught up with one of my favorite pundits, Robert Springborg, during his visit to Berlin. You can read the interview on the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation portal.

📁 Palestine, Lebanon

• Egypt wants to see the Lebanese army empowered to control southern Lebanon, Egyptian FM Badr Abdelatty told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Italy on Monday.

Source: Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

• Egypt welcomed the Lebanon ceasefire deal in a statement by the Foreign Ministry Wednesday morning, hoping this would lead to further regional de-escalation. The statement reiterated support for empowering the Lebanese army to deploy in the south (i.e., replace Hizbollah’s forces) and control all Lebanese territory.

• Sisi received Wednesday the Jordanian King, Abdullah II, and later the Qatari PM, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, to discuss the regional situation in Gaza and Lebanon.

Source: Egyptian Presidential Spokesperson.

• The Israeli army said Wednesday it downed a drone carrying weapons that crossed from Egypt. Egyptian security sources told Reuters they had no knowledge of such an incident.

• The WSJ reported Thursday

Egyptian officials have been in touch with Trump’s team, gauging if he could convince Israel to compromise some of its key sticking points, namely its desire for a “buffer zone” between Israel and Gaza. Meanwhile, Cairo has let Hamas know that it is isolated, especially after Hezbollah struck the cease-fire deal with Israel, and that its demands for a full Israeli military withdrawal from the enclave are unlikely to be accepted by Netanyahu.

• An Egyptian delegation arrived in Israel to discuss ending the Gaza war, Israeli military sources told Haaretz Thursday. The sources added that the Egyptian proposal does not prevent Israel from resuming fighting if the agreement is violated.

• On Friday, Sisi marked the International Day for the Solidarity with the Palestinian People by declaring his “full support for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” including establishing an independent state on the 4 June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
  More than 100 Egyptians remain incarcerated for taking part in Palestine solidarity actions since October 2023.

• The WSJ reported Saturday

Egypt and Hamas have both indicated that they won’t insist on the Israeli military leaving the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing immediately, in a U-turn over a key demand that had scuttled previous attempts to reopen the crossing.

• Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials on Sunday in a fresh push for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, two Hamas sources said, and Israeli PM Netanyahu was set to hold security talks on the matter, two Israeli officials said.

• Pundit Maged Mandour explores the reasons behind Sisi’s virtual silence as Israel conducts its genocide in Gaza.

• The 5,500 or so Gazan patients who hospitals in Cairo or Arish took in

soon realized that they weren't free to move around as they pleased. Patients and their relatives were banned from leaving the hospital, and when they were allowed to go out to buy basic staples or medicine, they had to carry a special permit and report their movements – and were often accompanied by a security guard.
Cancer patients sometimes had to wait a whole month before a bed was found for them to receive chemotherapy. Some patients had to finance their own medication, after the authorities prevented Egyptian welfare organizations from collecting donations for these displaced people. Some organizations couldn't get information on the condition of Palestinian patients, or even a list of names, because hospitals were banned from releasing any information.

📁 The Red Sea