It is considered the most important peace treaty sealed in the Middle East, it earned its signatories the Nobel Peace Prize and cost one of them his life.
The agreement between Egypt and Israel, signed in 1979 and in force since 1980, ended more than two decades of hostility and has managed to maintain stability between two neighboring military powers for almost 45 years.
But the war in Gaza and the presence of the Israeli army at the Rafah border crossingan area subject to security agreements that have their origin in that peace treaty and subsequent protocols, have strained relations between both countries like few times in these four decades.
The exchange of accusations in recent months has been frequent, the last of them between the Foreign Ministers of the two countries regarding the difficulties in accessing humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing, for which they blame each other.
The atmosphere has been warming to the point that Egypt announced that it intends to formally join South Africa’s complaint against Israel for genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), an announcement that has taken the Israeli government by surprise.
South Africa went to this court in The Hague last December and accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, something that the Israeli government rejects.
Egypt’s support for the South African initiative was adopted, according to a statement from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Cairo is also considering reducing its diplomatic representation in Israel in protest at military operations in Rafah and Israeli control of the border crossing, a source close to decision-making circles in Egypt told the BBC Arabic service.
For now, Egypt has made it clear that the peace treaty is safe.
As researcher Gayil Talshir, professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explains to BBC Mundo, “The peace between Egypt and Israel is a cold peace, there is no great love, but a series of shared national and security interests”.
However, the growing tension between both countries and the development of the Gaza war cast shadows on the neighbors’ future relations.
What does the treaty say?
Between 1948 and 1973, Israel and Egypt fought four wars, in which the common border moved according to the balance of forces.
After the last conflict in 1973, known as the Yom Kippur War, the treaty began to be negotiated and with the mediation of the American presidency of Jimmy Carter, the agreements were reached. Camp David agreements of 1978.
That same year, the then Egyptian president, Anwar el Sadat, and the Israeli, Menajen Begin, received the Nobel Peace Prize for “having jointly negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel.”
The Peace Treaty was signed the following year and entered into force in January 1980. A year later, Sadat was assassinated by a group of Egyptian soldiers led by the Islamist officer Khaled al Islambuli in protest, he alleged, for the signing of peace with Israel.
The agreement also broke the monolithic Arab front against Israel, and condemned Egypt, which under Gamal Abdel Nasser had been the great regional leader, to the ostracism of its former allies, who vetoed it from the Arab League until 1989.
The protocol attached to the agreement established a delicate balance of forces.
He demarcated the borders between both countries and divided the Sinai Peninsula into three main zones (A, B and C). Different levels of troops and weapons are allowed in each one.
There is also a zone D about 2.5 kilometers deep on the border between the two, which acts as a buffer zone.
The agreement allows the presence of a limited Israeli military force in zone D, where multinational forces and UN observers, including Colombian soldiers, are also deployed.
These Israeli forces also controlled the portion of the border between Gaza and Egypt, known as “Philadelphi Corridor”which extends for 14 kilometers and was considered a “demilitarized buffer zone” between both countries.
However, following the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel signed with Egypt a protocol called the “Philadelphi Protocol,” which was attached to the peace agreement and which allowed Egypt to deploy 750 soldiers in the area called Area C. along its border with Gaza and adjacent to area D to combat terrorism, cross-border infiltration and arms smuggling.
Israel has long claimed that much of the weapons used by Hamas enter Gaza through tunnels that enter Egyptian territory.
Why Egypt feels threatened
The arrival of Israeli soldiers at the Rafah border crossing has marked a turning point.
Israel, argues Ayman Salama, professor of international law and member of the Egyptian Council on Foreign Affairs, He has no right to deploy additional soldiers in zone D without obtaining approval from the Egyptian side, he explained to the BBC Arabic service.
In his opinion, the Israeli deployment of military forces on the international border with Egypt It is a violation of the terms of the peace agreement and its security annexes, since it is a hostile act that threatens the national sovereignty of Egypt.
But also, Egypt has feared since the beginning of the war that Israeli operations, in which some 35,000 Gazans have already diedaccording to the Strip’s Ministry of Health, and which have forced nearly two million people to leave their homes and move to the south, force an exit of Palestinians towards the Sinai.
Several statements by members of the Israeli government throughout these months of war have mentioned the possibility of Palestinians from Gaza moving to the Sinai.
This “has made the Egyptian government not only suspicious, but convinced that the Israeli government wants to end the presence of Palestinians in Gaza by pushing them towards Egypt and This is not acceptable because it would be the end of the Palestinian issue”, political scientist Mustafa Kamel el Sayyid, who teaches at the American University of Cairo, explained to BBC Mundo.
So far, however, after forcing the population to move further and further south, from Gaza City to Khan Younis and later to Rafah, and despite controlling the Palestinian part of the border crossing, Israel has not forced the exit. of the Gazans towards the Sinai.
The Palestinians in the Strip, who are living in extreme conditions and suffering from famine and disease, have also not staged an invasion of Egyptian territory, as they did temporarily in 2008, after Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza.
The population, however, is being forced to move towards the small coastal strip in southern Gaza known as Al Mawasi, which Israel has declared a “humanitarian zone”, and has even given the green light for them to return to areas somewhat further south. north like Deir el Balah or the western part of Khan Yunis, cities of which hardly any ruins remain.
According to the UN, almost 450,000 people have had to flee Rafah in the last week alone.
From the Israeli perspective, the border between Egypt and Gaza is not secure enough, as it is convinced that much of the artillery and supplies that came into the hands of Hamas and that were used in its attack on October 7, in in which some 1,200 people died and more than 200 were kidnapped, they did so through illegal tunnels from the Sinai.
“Israel now wants to control the border, at least temporarily between Gaza and Egypt,” explains Gayil Talshir.
For the researcher, “it is clear why Egypt is more concerned, it does not want it to become a conflictive border with the possibility of confrontations between Egypt and Israel, and that is why it is launching these types of threats, because it wants Israel to be blocked.” , he points out in reference to the announcement of joining South Africa’s complaint against Israel for genocide before the International Court of Justice.
What Egypt can do
Egypt is not only present in the Gaza war due to its border situation, but is also one of the main negotiators, along with Qatar, between Hamas and Israel to reach an agreement to cease hostilities and the release of the hostages held. of the militia group.
This is a role that it has traditionally played for decades in successive wars and conflicts in the Strip.
In Cairo, for example, the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas for five years in Gaza, was negotiated in exchange for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners in 2011.
This gives Egypt a strategic value in the eyes of Israelwhich can count on Cairo as an intermediary with those enemies with whom it would otherwise be impossible to communicate.
Egypt, reminds Professor Gayil Talshir, is also “Iran’s main enemy”, something that places it, from the Israeli perspective, on its side.
The Egyptian regime is also one of Washington’s main allies in the Middle East.
Since the signing of the peace treaty with Israel, it has received substantial military aid annually from the United States, which in 2023 rose to 1.3 billion.
This alliance conditions, in some way, any confrontation that Egypt may have against Israel.
But Washington, a faithful ally of the Israeli government, has been firmer with Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks for how it is carrying out the war in Gaza, and even stopped a shipment of bombs to that country earlier this month.
Shortly afterwards, Egypt announced its intention to join the South African complaint against Israel before the ICJ.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry now assures that systematic attacks against civilians, the destruction of infrastructure and pressure for Gazans to abandon their homes and lands have led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, “in flagrant violation of the provisions of international lawinternational humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”
Egypt has called on Israel to “fulfill its obligations as an occupying power” and implement the ICJ’s provisional measures ordering Israel to ensure the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid to meet the needs of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and not commit no violation against the Palestinian people under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
By taking this step, Egypt will be able to provide legal and technical support to South Africa, explained Ahmed Abu Al -Wafa, professor of International Law at Cairo University to the BBC Arabic service.
According to MP Tarek Radwan, who chairs the Human Rights Committee of the Egyptian Parliament, they have sufficient evidence to support Egypt’s participation in the case before the ICJ.
But can Cairo go beyond this announcement?
Despite the tensions, “Egypt and Israel share a mutual interest in stopping Hamas”argues the researcher from the Hebrew University.
“Both are worried about what will happen the day after the war since, if there is no Palestinian alternative to govern Gaza, it will once again be Hamas or another jihadist movement, something that neither of them wants,” concludes Gayil Talshir. .
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