Egypt denies reports about giving Sinai to Palestinians

The spokesman for Egypt’s president is categorically denying a report that Egypt has proposed giving up part of Sinai Peninsula for the Palestinians to set up an independent state.

In a statement, Alaa Youssef says the issue has not been discussed or presented “on any level.”

“It’s unimaginable to get into such unrealistic and unacceptable proposals especially in Sinai, which is a dear part of the nation,” he says.

His remarks came at the end of a meeting on Thursday between top commanders of the Egyptian army and police with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo.

Predicting a sharp and somewhat bewildering shift in policy, Minister Ayoub Kara said before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump two weeks ago that the two planned to discuss a plan to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula and not in the West Bank, reviving an idea long rejected by the international community.

After the meeting, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Kara’s comments were “unauthorized speculation.”