From the Liveblog of
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Netanyahu said to warn Egypt’s military is ‘getting stronger,’ Israel must keep an eye on it
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In a closed-door meeting with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly warned that the Egyptian military has been “getting stronger” and said Israel needed to keep an eye on it to ensure it didn’t go too far.
According to Hebrew media reports, Netanyahu told the committee that “the Egyptian army is getting stronger and we need to monitor it.”
He acknowledged, according to reports, that Israel and Egypt “have a relationship and common interests,” but said nevertheless that Jerusalem “needs to prevent it [the Egyptian army] from becoming too strong.”
Israel has previously accused Egypt of violating the 1979 peace accords by amassing forces close to the border with Israel.
In September 2025, Israel was said to have asked the US to pressure Egypt over its military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula. At the time, Netanyahu reportedly told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Cairo was constructing runways for fighter jets and underground sites that appeared to be designed for storing missiles.
An Egyptian source later confirmed that Egypt was building up its forces in the Sinai Peninsula, but claimed it was doing so to ensure that Palestinians would not be “forcibly uprooted” from Gaza.
A Middle Eastern intelligence source, however, denied there has been any significant change in Egypt’s force posture in the Sinai and said claims to the contrary were “periodically recycled” by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to create a rift with Cairo.
The Times of Israel Community.