Sisi Calls Israel ‘Enemy,’ Gas Deals Tell Another Story

Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s issue dissects the Doha summit’s empty theatrics against the backdrop of deepening energy ties with Israel, including a new $610 million gas pipeline deal. I also cover Sisi’s retreat on the debt-laden Procurement Authority, new AOI ventures in telecoms and drone production, and Cairo’s troop preparations for Somalia. Other highlights include Egypt–Turkey naval drills, a notorious torturer’s death, privatization of army corporations, a UN report on reprisals against rights defenders, and a state-backed Quran app consolidating regime control over religion.

Arab Summit Flops as Empty Spectacle, Israeli Gas Deals With Cairo Advance

The Doha summit was billed as an emergency show of Arab unity, but it ended as little more than a photo-op. Leaders gathered for group shots and hollow speeches while Israel escalated its assault on Gaza within hours of their closing statement. Behind the scenes, key Gulf players like the UAE watered down even Qatar’s modest proposals for accountability, ensuring the final communiqué was a bundle of platitudes with no teeth.

The absence of a joint Arab front—already eroded by years of normalization—was glaring, and the summit only confirmed what diplomats told Mada Masr in advance: Arab-Israeli relations are managed bilaterally, not collectively. For all the bluster about “defending sovereignty” after an Israeli strike on Doha, the meeting achieved nothing to deter further aggression. It was spectacle over substance, a futile exercise that revealed the impotence of Arab capitals in the face of unfolding catastrophe.

The Israeli and Arab media outlets are sensationally consumed with “tensions” between Israel and Egypt, and how Sisi’s speech at Doha referred to Israel as “the enemy.”

Both among the rulers of Egypt and Israel, there is political clout that could be built from the war of words. The media is full of reports based on anonymous sources citing “Egyptian military buildup in Sinai.” To cut a long story short, this is fake news, fueled by both sides.

It’s in Sisi’s interest to appear as a powerful ruler practicing sovereignty on a semi-demilitarized peninsula, protecting the country’s border, and threatening the Israelis. It’s also in Netanyahu’s interest to stir such troubles, because his political survival thrives on conflict. On the ground, there is not a single Egyptian tank that could enter Sinai without Israel’s approval under the watchful eye of the Multinational Force and Observers. Even a conservative Zionist outlet such as The Times of Israel acknowledges:

A Middle Eastern intelligence source, however, denies there has been any significant change in Egypt’s force posture in the Sinai and says claims to the contrary are “periodically recycled” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to create a rift with Cairo.
The source claims to The Times of Israel that the only significant change in security arrangements between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai is that the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) has ceased enforcement against alleged Israeli violations of the peace treaty due to the IDF’s force buildup in Zone D, which is also known as the Philadelphi Corridor border strip between Gaza and Egypt.

Meanwhile, Chevron and its partners in Israel’s Leviathan gas field have signed a $610 million agreement with Israel Natural Gas Lines to build the Nitzana pipeline, a 65-kilometer route linking southern Israel to the Egyptian border.

The project, set for completion in 2028, will transport at least 600 million cubic feet of gas per day, raising Israel’s export capacity to Egypt above 2.2 billion cubic feet daily.

The deal follows a record $35 billion export contract signed in August to supply gas to Egypt, cementing energy ties despite “political tensions.” Leviathan, holding reserves of some 600 bcm, has already provided Egypt with 23.5 bcm since 2020. Chevron hailed the pipeline as key to regional energy security, while NewMed Energy called it “a direct continuation of the huge deal we signed with our Egyptian partners.”

Israeli gas currently covers 15–20% of Egypt’s consumption.

Dig Deeper: Egypt-Israel War of Words

Soldier’s Paradise

I reviewed Samuel Fury Childs Daly’s book: Soldier’s Paradise: Militarism in Africa after Empire.