The office of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi rejected a request to speak by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to several Israeli media outlets, including the newspaper ” The Times of Israel“.
According to what the newspaper reported, Netanyahu’s office, through the National Security Council, tried to coordinate the conversation in recent days, but the request was rejected.
Quotes Israeli Channel 13, Two informed sources reported that Netanyahu’s office submitted a request to coordinate a dialogue between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Egyptian President, “but to no avail.”
Contacts are currently taking place at a lower level between Egypt and Israel, and there are Israeli delegations that have visited Cairo in recent weeks.
The last conversation between Netanyahu and Sisi took place during June, months before the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Hamas movement, which is classified as a terrorist organization in the United States and other countries.
Israeli Radio indicated “differences of opinion between Egypt and Israel regarding a possible move in the Philadelphia-Rafah axis.”
There was no official comment from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office or the Egyptian Presidency regarding the authenticity of these reports, and the Al-Hurra website was unable to confirm this through independent sources.
On Monday, Egypt issued a strongly worded statement, warning Israel of a “dangerous and serious threat” to relations between the two countries if it moved to “occupy” the Philadelphia Corridor, located on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
The Philadelphia Axis, also known as the “Salah al-Din Axis,” is a buffer zone under the peace agreement concluded between Egypt and Israel in 1979, and its length is 14 km.
The General Information Service (the official one in Egypt) issued a statement through its head, Diaa Rashwan, in which he spoke about what he described as “false claims and accusations” issued by Israeli officials, regarding the existence of smuggling operations of weapons, explosives, ammunition and their components, into the Gaza Strip from Egyptian territory.
The statement pointed out that “Israel’s persistence in marketing these lies is an attempt to create legitimacy for its attempt to occupy the Philadelphia Corridor, or the Salah al-Din Corridor, in the Gaza Strip along the border with Egypt, in violation of the security agreements and protocols signed between it and Egypt.”
He added: “Here it must be strictly emphasized that any Israeli move in this direction will lead to a serious and serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations.”
Netanyahu had indicated in statements last month that after the war on Hamas, “the Philadelphia Corridor must be under Israel’s control to ensure the disarmament of Gaza and prevent the smuggling of weapons through tunnels into the Strip.”
He also stated in December that Israel had discussed several options regarding the “Philadelphia axis” on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, but had not yet made a decision.
Netanyahu added that closing the border area to isolate Hamas is one of the goals of the ongoing war in Gaza, noting that “there are a number of options” including transferring forces to Philadelphia.
At the end of December, Yoni Ben Menachem, an analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Arab Affairs, stated in an analysis for the Israeli center that there is a “sensitive” importance to the Philadelphia Corridor, noting that security estimates in Israel indicate that it is “a major route for smuggling weapons from Egypt to Hamas.”
He added that controlling the corridor “effectively cuts off the only land link between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which may lead to obstructing movement between the two sides through the tunnel network.”
The Israeli official broadcaster (Kan) reported that Israeli officials informed Egypt last week that they were planning a military operation in the Philadelphia axis area, adding that “although it was not mentioned when such an operation would take place, if it happened, it would require the dismissal of “Palestinian officials in the border area and replacing them with Israeli forces.”
The war broke out in the Gaza Strip following the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, which resulted in the killing of 1,200 people, most of them civilians, including women and children, according to the Israeli authorities.
In response to the attack, Israel vowed to “eliminate the movement,” and has since carried out a bombing campaign followed by ground operations since October, resulting in 25,700 deaths, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
2024-01-25 07:21:27
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