Israeli slip of the tongue embarrasses Egypt
The statement by Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz in regard to alleged security cooperation with Egypt angered Cairo and complicated the battle against Hamas.
Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip are careful not to talk publicly about the damage done to their tunnels by the Egyptians for fear that it would upset Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi even more. Yet they occasionally give voice to their criticism, albeit wary not to cross the line, and wonder aloud, what is it that drives the Egyptian army and its leaders to act the way they do? Why are they waging an ongoing, relentless war against Hamas?
In 2015-16, several smuggling tunnels collapsed along the Rafah border, some after being flooded by the Egyptians. Hamas admitted that a number of the organization's militants had been killed in the collapse of the tunnels and said Israel and its "collaborators" were responsible. But who are those collaborators? They have never explicitly spelled it out, leaving the mystery, supposedly known only to confidants, for anyone else to figure out.
In August 2013, a month after Sisi deposed then-President Mohammed Morsi and seized power in Egypt, Egyptian media reported that Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and another unidentified senior Israeli official — rumored to be Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen — were observed at the airport in Cairo. According to the reports, the two met with top-ranking Egyptian security officials for what was described as a series of coordination talks on issues related to the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula, security understandings regarding Israel's freedom of action along the Egyptian border and Israeli intelligence assistance to the Egyptian army in its struggle against Islamic terrorist organizations operating in Sinai.
The intelligence and security contacts between Israel and Egypt are considered an open secret; however, neither side has ever publicly acknowledged these relationships, certainly not in the context of the Egyptian army's operations against the Gaza smuggling tunnels, allegedly driven and encouraged by Israel. That is, not until Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (formerly minister of intelligence) arrived in Beersheba a few days ago.
