Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s dispatch includes reports on Egypt and the regional wars in Palestine and Syria, the Suez Canal, foreign military cooperation, Orjani’s newly planned political party, economic activities of the GIS and military, arms imports, aviation, the navy, militarization of the justice system, refugees, migration, prisons, and security crackdowns.

📁 Palestine

• On Monday, FM Badr Abdelatty called, during the Cairo Ministerial Conference to Enhance the Humanitarian Response in Gaza, for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing. These statements came two days after WSJ revealed that “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.”
  The US Ambassador to Cairo, Herro Mustafa Garg, attended the conference.

• A senior Israeli official told i24NEWS that the Israeli army will significantly reduce its presence on the Philadelphi Corridor but will not completely withdraw from it.

• A Palestinian Authority official on Tuesday confirmed that an agreement had been reached between Hamas and Fatah to appoint a committee of politically independent technocrats to administer Gaza after the war following weeks of negotiations in Cairo. The official said the committee would have 12-15 members, most from Gaza, and would report to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, effectively ending Hamas’s rule of the strip.

• The detention of six Alexandrian activists was renewed Tuesday for 45 days—including prominent textile trade unionist Shady Mohamed—who are accused of raising a banner in Smouha in support of Gaza and political detainees last April. More than 100 Egyptians remain incarcerated for taking part in Palestine solidarity actions after October 2023.

• The American University in Cairo students organized a small protest in solidarity with Gaza on Wednesday. In related news, Cairo University has banned its students and faculty from wearing Palestinian scarves.

• The updated hostage deal proposal given to Hamas by Egypt was not an Israeli offer, but was instead an Egyptian proposal for an “extended truce, not an end to the war,” that Israel is fully open to discussing, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel on Thursday.

Israel “has an interest” that Egypt remains at the center of the talks, says the official, adding that Qatar remains updated behind the scenes, and will want to take full part in mediation if there is progress. “Turkey has no role,” says the official, contradicting earlier reports.

📁 Syria