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For weeks, talk show hosts and columnists in Egypt’s government-run media spoke with one voice: any Israeli “occupation” of the Philadelphia Corridor, a buffer zone on the Egypt-Gaza border, could constitute a violation of Egypt’s sovereignty and national sovereignty. security: a new blow to a relationship that Israel’s military offensive in southern Gaza had already brought to its lowest point in decades.
But when the Israeli military said it had taken “tactical control” of the corridor last week, the same government spokesmen were quick to say that the border area had nothing to do with Egypt; Sovereignty was not mentioned.
It was the latest sign that Cairo continues to protect its relationship with Israel, which has generated valuable military and intelligence cooperation against Egyptian insurgents, as well as billions of dollars in American aid and natural gas imports from Israel.
For Israel too, more than four decades of the so-called “cold peace” with Egypt have proven to be an essential pillar of national security. The alliance gave Israel a path to better relations with its Muslim neighbors, paving the way for the normalization of its ties with more countries and making it an increasingly integral part of an anti-Iran regional axis.
Still, Israel risked upsetting the delicate balance because it says it needed to take control of the Philadelphia Corridor to destroy dozens of tunnels under the border that it says have allowed Hamas to smuggle weapons into the Strip, despite statements of Egypt to stop smuggling years ago.
The Israeli army’s advance into southern Gaza and the city of Rafah in recent weeks has put a serious strain on ties between the two countries, raising questions about how far Israel will go in insisting on full control over the border area, and how much of Egypt can tolerate a continued Israeli presence there.
Egypt’s patience with Israel’s military measures is running dangerously thin, as it has repeatedly made clear. The government is not only panicking at the prospect of Gazans fleeing the fighting in Rafah on the border with Egypt, it is also determined to show its public that it is standing up to Israel, which most Egyptians still consider it an enemy despite 45 years of war. year-old peace treaty.
Cairo has signed on to speak in support of South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. And he has warned that Israel is jeopardizing the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, which emerged from what is known as the Camp David Accords.
Although it has denounced Israel for cutting off humanitarian aid to Gaza, Egypt itself temporarily stopped the flow of aid trucks from its own territory, where most of the aid is accumulated before being transported by truck to the Palestinian strip, in an attempt to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Rafah crossing. . That border point, the main conduit for aid and other supplies during the war, lies between Egypt and Gaza, but was recently occupied by Israel, sparking public outrage in Egypt.
Egypt has refrained from taking more serious steps to respond to Israel’s measures, such as withdrawing its ambassador from Tel Aviv. And the government-run media appears to have been assisting in efforts to limit public outrage.
Egypt is “prepared for all scenarios and will never allow any invasion of its sovereignty and national security, whether directly or indirectly,” wrote Ahmed Moussa, a prominent talk show host, in a column for Al-Ahram, the Egypt’s main newspaper. newspaper, May 17.
However, when Israel seized the corridor last Wednesday, Moussa was on air, criticizing social media users who said Egypt seemed weak for allowing the seizure. He linked such “allegations” to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political group that Egypt has long demonized as a terrorist organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.
“The Philadelphia Corridor is not Egyptian territory,” Moussa insisted in a nine-minute segment dedicated to the topic, showing a giant map. “It is Palestinian territory. It doesn’t belong to us. Let me show you our borders.”
Isabel Kershner contributed with reports.