Egypt Security Sector Report

This week’s dispatch includes reports on the Philadelphi Corridor, the Red Sea, arms imports, Sisi’s Ankara visit, and prison deaths.

📁 Egypt & the War in Palestine

• This is a video of a public talk I gave in Zurich, on the role of the Palestinian cause in driving local Egyptian dissent.

• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a speech on Monday that Israel will not give up control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border. Egyptian FM Badr Abdelatty responded by reasserting “Egypt’s unequivocal rejection” of Israeli control over the corridor.
  It emerged later, according to a report in Haaretz, which other Israeli media outlets confirmed, that the Mossad chief David Barnea assured mediators that Israel accepted withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor in the second stage of a hostages release deal, only hours before Netanyahu’s speech, which meant to sabotage the agreement for “political reasons.”
  Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to pave an asphalt road along the corridor, signaling their potential long-term stay at the Egypt-Gaza border.

• Maj. Gen. Ahmed Khalifa, the Egyptian Army Chief of Staff, and the senior brass inspected the troops at the Rafah Crossing and other security checkpoints in N. Sinai on Thursday. He praised the “gains resulting from a stable security situation” and warned the deployed personnel of the “dangers of rumors against the Egyptian state.”
  On social media, the regime bots flooded X and Facebook with posts, as always, depicting Egypt as some superpower and Khalifa’s visit as a threatening message to Israel. It is a message to Israel indeed, yet not a threat, but rather a declaration that the Egyptian military can secure the border against the tunnels and any cross-border activity, contrary to Netanyahu’s claims.

• Palestinians fleeing Gaza are vulnerable to rent gouging and resentment in Egypt, and they are denied access to basic services that refugees would typically receive.