Egypt Security Sector Report
This week’s dispatch delves into the latest on Egypt’s Palestine diplomacy, shifting narratives around the Suez Canal, labor disputes within military-owned companies, and the tightly controlled entertainment industry.
📁 Palestine
The Israeli Embassy in Cairo announced it held an iftar for “Egyptian businessmen and intellectuals” on Monday. As usual, no faces or names were published.
A day after an Israeli negotiating team returned from Cairo, Israel resumed its genocidal war early Tuesday, with US blessing. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the attacks.
FM Badr Abdelatty wrote an op-ed for The Hill on Wednesday to market Egypt’s Gaza reconstruction plan.
“Hamas has not closed the door on negotiations, but we insist there is no need for new agreements,” Taher al-Nunu, a leading group official, told AFP on the phone from Cairo on Wednesday, also calling for Israel to be forced to implement the ceasefire.
Israeli ground forces retook the Netzarim Corridor on Wednesday. The previously deployed US contractors and Egyptian security personnel manning the checkpoints had withdrawn the previous day, following a visit by an Israeli military delegation to Cairo. The security personnel, who belong to the GIS counterterror force, are still inside Gaza, though. The Egyptian bulldozer drivers who had been working to clear the rubble are also still in the Strip.
A small protest in solidarity with Gaza was held in front of the Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo on Wednesday.
The Lebanese al-Akhbar cited on Friday, “Arab diplomatic sources” alleging Sisi said at the Riyadh Summit that he is willing to temporarily relocate half a million residents from Gaza to a designated city in N Sinai as part of the reconstruction plan. The Israeli media picked up on the report and publicized it widely. The Egyptian government “categorically” denied the allegations.
In a Saturday interview, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, expressed concern over the stability of Sisi’s regime.
Israel has recently intercepted dozens of heavy-lift drones along the Egyptian border in a covert war against smugglers. But Haaretz has learned that most smuggling attempts succeed, allowing large quantities of drugs, weapons, and even exotic animals to enter Israel.
Two small protests were held yesterday in front of the Lawyers and Journalists Syndicates in downtown Cairo.
Egypt has introduced a new proposal to try to get the ceasefire back on track. Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, in return for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza and a weekslong pause in the fighting, an Egyptian official told AP today. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
