Senior Egyptian officials told their US counterparts that they want the International Stabilization Force outlined in Trump’s 20-point peace plan to be modeled on the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) that deployed to Sinai after the peninsula was returned to Egypt from Israel in 1982.
The US has led the MFO since its inception, supplying hundreds of troops as a buffer and reassurance force.
The airport, called El Gora, is usually largely inactive but used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), the peacekeeping organisation that monitors the security provisions of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in the Sinai. It is the closest airport to Gaza outside of Israel.
A U.S. Air Force Beech C-12V Huron plane arrived in Egypt on 23 August and has been flying daily flights in the region since. A Black Hawk helicopter also started flying from the airport on 9 September. It is believed that the planes are operating under the MFO mandate, which does not include the war in Gaza, because their callsign includes that acronym.
But Deep Dive has found evidence the planes are being used by the Trump administration to spy close to, and possibly over, Gaza.
The US Beech C-12V flew its first mission on 31 August and transponder data shows it spent an hour circling just 10 miles off northern Gaza after taking off from Hatzor military base in Israel, which has been used to gather intelligence over the Palestinian territory.
North Sinai has long been floated as a possible destination for displaced Palestinians, an idea that has resurfaced multiple times over the decades. Cairo, however, continues to view such a scenario as a red line.
Earlier this year, speculation reignited when US President Donald Trump suggested that Egypt and Jordan should accept Palestinians fleeing the war.
Egyptian authorities have detained and questioned more than 200 people who arrived in Cairo to participate in the Global March to Gaza, an international action intended to break Israel’s siege on the territory, the organisers said on Thursday.
According to the march organisers, some 4000 people from over 40 countries had booked flights to Cairo, with many already arriving ahead of the planned march.
The activists had flown to Cairo to join a grassroots land convoy which set off from the Tunisian capital on Monday in the hopes of reaching Egypt’s Rafah border with Gaza as a “symbolic act” to spotlight Israel’s crippling 18-year siege on the territory.
(May 20, 2024)
“The Arab world has turned its citizens into consumers basically,” explained Rami G. Khouri, a distinguished public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, in an interview with RS.
“You can consume anything you want. There are 25 different kinds of fried chicken which you can buy in most Arab capitals and that’s fine. That’s what the governments want is to have people spend their time, money, and thoughts on consumption. But anything that has to do with political power, public policy, and allocation of economic gains have to be controlled by the government,” he added.
(December 9, 2023)
With President Carter’s leadership, the modern Department of Education and the Department of Energy were created. He championed conservation, and his commitment to a more just world was at the heart of his foreign policy, leading on nuclear nonproliferation, signing the Panama Canal treaties, and mediating the historic 1978 Camp David Accords.
Egypt reiterated its call for the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security, warning of the serious consequences if the international community fails to intervene promptly to stop the Israeli aggression.
(December 9, 2023)
Argaman, who headed the Shin Bet between 2016 and 2021, said the majority of weapons entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing.
“When Netanyahu speaks of remaining on the Philadelphi Corridor, he knows very well that no smuggling takes place over the Philadelphi Corridor. So we are now relegated to living with this imaginary figment,” he said.
(December 9, 2023)
According to Netanyahu, the best way to prevent these Hamas hostage smuggling efforts is through maintaining the contested Philadelphi Route – a security corridor that runs between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Unnamed senior officials tell Channel 12 news that mediators in ceasefire-hostage deal talks have decided to set aside the thorny issue of Israel’s presence in two Gaza corridors under a potential agreement, and are focusing on other matters.
(May 30, 2024)
Just 14 kilometers (about 8.7 miles) long and 100 meters wide, the strip of land is a central part of a peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979, which ended decades of war. Until the treaty, the two countries had been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948.
Egypt stressed to all concerned parties its rejection to any Israeli presence in Rafah Border Crossing or Philadelphi Corridor, a high-profile source told Egyptian media Monday.