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29 July 2024

Egypt showing flexibility on IDF staying along its Gaza border to block arms smuggling

Jacob Magid

After long rejecting the idea in public, Cairo is privately moving toward allowing IDF troops to remain in a key border strip used by Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza, a senior Israeli official and a second official familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Tuesday.

The potential shift in Egypt’s position would likely complicate Hamas’s standing in the ongoing hostage negotiations, as the terror group is demanding that Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor as part of the staged ceasefire deal.

Israeli negotiators since May had been discussing withdrawing from the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) border stretch, with the US leading trilateral discussions with Israel and Egypt about the creation of an underground wall along the corridor at the south of the Strip and the installation of a surveillance system to thwart any weapons smuggling into Gaza, the two officials said.

But seeking to capitalize off a boosted position on the battlefield earlier this month, Netanyahu shifted course and declared that the IDF remaining in Philadelphi was nonnegotiable.

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