Israel’s US envoy: Egypt’s Sissi is breaking peace deal, ‘playing both sides’ with Hamas
Ambassador Yechiel Leiter tells US Jewish leaders Israel will start sharing ‘truth’ about Qatar after having to ‘suck it up’ for captives’ sake, says Turkey stoking tensions on Temple Mount
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Israel’s envoy to the United States has accused Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of violating the US-brokered peace deal between Jerusalem and Cairo, profiting from the desperation of Palestinians seeking to flee the Gaza Strip and duplicitously operating to benefit Hamas.
Ambassador Yechiel Leiter made the allegations during a Zoom meeting on January 28 with the executives of major American Jewish organizations, a recording of which was obtained Friday by The Times of Israel.
The comments castigating Egypt and its leader were quite out of the ordinary, particularly since the start of the Gaza war, during which Jerusalem has sought to maintain a working relationship with Cairo. Egypt is serving as one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas in order to secure the release of Israeli hostages seized by the Palestinian terror group during its October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Ties between Israel and Egypt have been frosty since Netanyahu returned to power in December 2022, and the premier has not spoken to Sissi since the start of the fighting in Gaza, as Cairo has fumed over what it feels has been Jerusalem’s efforts to move Gazans into the Sinai Peninsula.
While Egypt has rejected the idea outright — and has stuck to this position in recent weeks as US President Donald Trump has doubled down on the idea as part of his own Gaza takeover plan — it has sought assurances from Israel that those who leave the Strip will be allowed to return, a senior Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel. Such an assurance has yet to come, further straining the strategic relationship.
Leiter raised his qualms with Egypt during a briefing with the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations, the first such meeting he has held with the umbrella group since arriving in Washington last month.
Netanyahu appointed Leiter to replace former US ambassador to Israel Michael Herzog, a more moderate figure who was tasked with weathering Israel-US ties during the Biden administration.
Leiter is more closely aligned with the Israeli right and settlement movement in particular, holding views that might not have been received well by the previous administration but are far more welcome under a Republican-controlled White House and Congress.
His criticism in the recent Zoom briefing extended from Egypt and Qatar — another key mediator — to Turkey, intermixed with remarks expressing pride about what he described as the increasingly normalized Israeli presence in the West Bank, all a reflection of the shift in Israel’s tone in Washington owing to its new embassy chief and the new American administration.
Shortly after this report was published, the Conference of Presidents published the full recording of the virtual meeting. By Tuesday, though, it had taken the video down.
“Egypt is in very serious violation of our peace agreement in the Sinai. This is an issue that is going to come to the fore because it’s not tolerable,” Leiter told the American Jewish leaders.
“We have bases being built that can only be used for offensive operations, for offensive weapons — that’s a clear violation,” Leiter said. “For a long time, it’s been shunted aside, and this continues. This is going to be an issue that we’re going to put on the table very soon and very emphatically.”
Footage purportedly shot from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in recent weeks shows a massive build-up of troops and tanks.
The show of force is reportedly aimed at signaling Cairo’s disapproval over Israel’s continued control over the Philadelphi Corridor border strip between Gaza and Egypt — itself a violation of the peace treaty that the two countries signed in 1979, according to Egypt. The troop build-up is also said to signal Egypt’s willingness to use force against Israel to prevent the displacement of Gazans into the Sinai Peninsula.
Leiter went on to accuse Sissi of “playing both sides of the equation” vis-à-vis Hamas, despite the Egyptian government being massively at odds with the Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood.
Nonetheless, the Israeli envoy argued that Egypt will be more likely to cooperate with Israel against Hamas if Jerusalem succeeds in “decisively defeating” the terror group in Gaza.
Leiter was asked about Israel’s efforts to plan for the post-war management of Gaza, an issue that has exposed Jerusalem to significant criticism, particularly from the Biden administration, which argued that Israel’s failure to advance a viable alternative to Hamas allowed the terror group to repeatedly refill vacuums created when the IDF shifted operations in the Strip.
Leiter echoed the argument of Netanyahu, who has maintained that no such planning can take place until Hamas is out of the picture, as no other governing body would be willing to enter Gaza until then.
The new Israeli ambassador said Egypt would likely be part of governance efforts in Gaza along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, though all three countries have repeatedly conditioned their participation on Israel allowing the Palestinian Authority to play a role as part of a pathway to a future two-state solution, a framework Israel rejects.
Still, Leiter insisted the “day after” Gaza conversations “are going on. The only way they can be successful is that we don’t talk about them publicly.”
“There’s going to be a situation in Gaza where either everybody’s going to try to go back to October 6 — and we’re not going to let it happen. We need an extensive buffer [zone]…. Or the international community and we can think out of the box and create a situation where people live in dignity and self-worth,” Leiter said, appearing to reference Trump’s calls for Gaza’s entire population to be relocated to Egypt, Jordan and other countries.
Asked specifically about Trump’s call to remove all of Gaza’s population, Leiter responded, “I don’t know if it’s an initiative, but certainly the president is calling attention to the fact that countries all over the world are taking bordering refugees.” The briefing took place about a week before Trump announced that he also wants the US to “take over” Gaza and lead the Strip’s reconstruction.
Pointing to the country of Chad, a country poorer than Egypt that has taken in refugees from neighboring Sudan, Leiter said it is “unconscionable that Egypt wouldn’t entertain the possibility of at least temporarily housing some of the refugees.”
He said members of Sissi’s family are running a travel agency that has charged Gazans tens of thousands of dollars to flee the war-torn Strip through Egypt.
Roughly 100,000 Gazans have succeeded in fleeing the Strip through such schemes, but the vast majority have been unable to leave, whether they want to or not.
Leiter said Egypt’s border with Gaza should at least be temporarily reopened in order to provide those who want to leave the ability to do so. Sissi, in the past has retorted that Israel should house refugees in the Negev Desert if it is so intent on clearing the Strip.
A spokesperson for Egypt’s embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Speaking the truth about Qatar and Turkey’
The new Israeli envoy also doubled down during the Zoom call on criticism he first made about Qatar during a Fox News interview several days earlier.
“We have to start talking about Qatar. The game that they’re playing — buying everybody out and then buying quiet and buying toleration for their support of terror is just not tenable,” Leiter said.
“We have to call their bluff and say… ‘Yes, you’re supporting faculties and universities around the country. You’re also supporting terror organizations.’ That doesn’t hold water… The first thing is to speak truth to their financial power,” he continued.
Qatar’s Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Doha already hit out at Leiter for such comments during the Fox News interview.
Ambassador, it is unfortunate that you do not mention that Qatar’s past humanitarian assistance to the Gaza population was entirely coordinated with Israel.
As PM Netanyahu said in a recent Time Magazine interview…[1/2] https://t.co/b6hvyORFjg
— Meshal Hamad AlThani (@Amb_AlThani) February 1, 2025
Critics of Doha, including many in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle, have pointed to its close ties with Hamas and transfer of funds to Gaza that allowed the terror group to prioritize building up its arsenal to attack Israel.
Qatar, in turn, has argued that Israel — and the US — lobbied aggressively for Doha to make such payments in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Netanyahu, himself, defended those payments in an interview with Time magazine last year. This week, Hebrew media revealed that one of Netanyahu’s aides did PR work on behalf of Doha, as did other aides ahead of the 2022 World Cup in the Gulf country.
Leiter then turned his criticism to Turkey, arguing that Ankara has become “verbally belligerent” toward Israel and has allowed “Hamas leaders and other Muslim Brotherhood contingents to operate from Turkish territory.”
He also accused Ankara of funding organizations that have sought to exacerbate tensions on Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount.
Turkey’s Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment.
“It was difficult [to criticize Qatar until now] because Qatar played a role in the release of the hostages… we had to — in very diplomatic language — suck it up. Nevertheless, we’re going to start talking about the truth behind the role Qatar and Turkey are playing,” Leiter said.
Prospects for Saudi normalization, Israeli-Palestinian peace
Commenting on the potential for a Saudi normalization agreement, he acknowledged that the sides are not on the brink of a deal, but are still closer than they have ever been.
That assessment came several days before Riyadh issued a fiery statement against Netanyahu, who proposed on a Fox News interview that Saudi Arabia should house Palestinians from Gaza. The Gulf kingdom has doubled down on its refusal to normalize ties with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Leiter said an Israeli defeat of Hamas would advance the initiative while admitting that the “perception of the United States withdrawing from the Middle East complicates that [effort] a bit.”
“On the one hand, [the Trump administration] wants to see normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia take place. On the other hand, there’s talk about pulling troops out here, pulling troops out there. How is that [US] guarantee of [Gulf allies’] security going to take place?” he posited.
Responding to a question about Israel’s presence in the West Bank, Leiter said it has become far less controversial than it once was.
“There are 600,000 people living in Judea and Samaria. That’s also a statement of success of Israeli governments — that we have a right for this land and that it’s Judea, that it’s Samaria,” he said, referring to the territory by its biblical name.
He reflected on the Trump administration’s recent decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. “There’s importance in a name, Judea was Judea long, long before there was a West Bank — about 3,000 years [before]. Let’s bear that in mind and use the proper name.”
Contrary to Gaza, where he appeared to back calls to at least temporarily relocate the population of two million, Leiter argued that the roughly three million Palestinians in the West Bank are here to stay.
“There’s going to have to be some sort of solution to living together, some sort of reconciliation in order to create a modicum of de facto coexistence, even if it’s not a permanent and enduring one,” said Leiter, who in the past has lobbied in favor of annexing the West Bank without specifying whether Palestinians would be able to receive equal rights to Israelis in the territory. “Whether it’s a local autonomy or broader autonomy plan that [former prime minister] Menachem Begin advanced, we’ll see.”
Leiter also drew a parallel between the archaeological tunnels Israel has dug underneath the Western Wall to unearth new findings from Jewish history and the tunnels Hamas dug under Gaza in order to keep Israeli hostages, demonstrating the civilizational divide between our concept of humanity and theirs.”
The envoy maintained that Israel does not view PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a “solution.”
The Netanyahu government has long likened Abbas to the Hamas terror group, taking issue with his payments to security prisoners and the families of slain terrorists — a policy that Ramallah reformed this week. The Trump administration tepidly welcomed the move, while Jerusalem dismissed it entirely.
Leiter also made a point of stressing his desire to “rebuild bipartisan support for Israel,” a goal that’s now been stated by several Israeli envoys upon taking up their posts in the US.
Leiter said he plans to try and engage with all parts of the political divide amid concerns over waning support for Israel among young evangelical Christians and young progressives.
He maintained that his background in academia will be an asset as he looks to visit college campuses, which have been rocked over the past year by pro-Palestinian protests against Israel over the war in Gaza and the administration’s handling of antisemitism linked to the unrest.
