Egypt showing flexibility on IDF staying along its Gaza border to block arms smuggling
Cairo is moving toward Israeli position despite public declarations, which could harm Hamas effort to ensure total IDF retreat as part of hostage deal, officials tell ToI
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
After long rejecting the idea in public, Cairo is privately moving toward allowing IDF troops to remain in a key border strip used by Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza, a senior Israeli official and a second official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.
The potential shift in Egypt’s position would likely complicate Hamas’s standing in the ongoing hostage negotiations, as the terror group is demanding that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor as part of the staged ceasefire deal.
Israeli negotiators since May had been discussing withdrawing from the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) border stretch, with the US leading trilateral discussions with Israel and Egypt about the creation of an underground wall along the corridor at the south of the Strip and the installation of a surveillance system to thwart any weapons smuggling into Gaza, the two officials said.
But seeking to capitalize off a boosted position on the battlefield earlier this month, Netanyahu shifted course and declared that the IDF remaining in Philadelphi was nonnegotiable.
The demand appeared to contradict the hostage proposal the prime minister approved in May, which envisioned Israel withdrawing from the entirety of the Gaza Strip in the second of three six-week phases of the ceasefire deal.
A member of Israel’s hostage negotiating team along with an Arab mediator expressed concern to The Times of Israel earlier this month that the new demand from Netanyahu — along with another new one, to create a mechanism to prevent the smuggling of weapons into northern Gaza — risked jeopardizing the hostage talks.
Israel took over the Gaza side of the Philadelphi Corridor in May as part of its offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. In the months leading up to that operation, Egypt warned that it risked harming the peace treaty Cairo and Jerusalem signed in 1979.
Egypt initially leveraged its role as one of the mediators in the hostage talks to try and push Israel to withdraw from the corridor as part of the ceasefire deal. But the Israeli official explained that Cairo has gradually relaxed this effort in recent weeks, as Jerusalem has hardened its negotiating stance.
“They too don’t want Hamas to resume smuggling on the border,” the Israeli official said of Egypt.
The official clarified that an agreement has not yet been reached and that Israel is seeking to remain in the Philadelphi Corridor for an extended period, though not permanently.
Smuggling tunnels were dug under the Gaza-Egypt border to get around the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Some of the tunnels were large enough for vehicles. Hamas brought in weapons and supplies, and Gaza residents smuggled in commercial goods, from livestock to construction materials.
That changed over the past decade, as Egypt battled Islamic State militants in Sinai. The Egyptian military cracked down on the tunnels and destroyed hundreds of them. The tunnels are not all gone, though, and Israel says it has uncovered dozens since entering the corridor in May.
While Egypt has begun moving toward Israel’s position regarding the Philadelphi Corridor, Israel has inched toward Cairo’s stance regarding the management of the nearby Rafah Border Crossing, the officials said.
Egypt shuttered Rafah after Israel took over the Gaza side in early May, conditioning its reopening on the Palestinian Authority replacing the IDF at the crossing.
Israel initially rejected any PA involvement in the management of the gate, with Netanyahu likening the Ramallah-based government to Hamas and vowing not to give the former a foothold in the Strip.
But recent weeks have also seen Jerusalem rethink its position on that key issue, as Netanyahu’s circle begins to recognize that the PA is the only viable alternative at the moment, even as it pushes for major reforms in Ramallah, the officials said.
Moreover, reopening the Rafah Crossing is integral to the success of the hostage deal, given that the latest proposal specifies that wounded Hamas fighters will be allowed to travel through the gate to receive medical treatment during the first phase of the ceasefire.
Egypt’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
