Egypt’s Arms Buildup and its Bases in the Sinai

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Ever since the 1979 Camp David Accords, Israel and Egypt have officially been at peace. As a result of those accords, Israel agreed to return to Egypt, for the second time (the first time was in 1957, after the Sinai Campaign) the entire Sinai, together with several oilfields Israel had discovered and several airbases it had built, along with the tourist city of Sharm el Sheikh. The handover of the Sinai took place in three tranches, and was completed in 1982. Ever since then, Egypt and Israel have had a “cold peace.” The friendly relations Israel had hoped for never developed. No Egyptian leader, save Hosni Mubarak, has in the past 45 years ever visited the Jewish state, and he did so only to attend the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, as a private citizen, at the request of Rabin’s widow. Nor has any Israel leader ever been invited to visit Egypt.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian media have never stopped printing or broadcasting calumnies against the Jewish state, including such absurdities as the claim that Israel wants to expand “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” The anti-Israel animus frequently degrades into outright antisemitism. Israel has a handful of defenders, and hundreds of enemies, in the Egyptian media. Egyptian schoolbooks, though not nearly as bad as the UNRWA texts, continue to contain most unflattering depictions of the Jewish state and its inhabitants, including claims about the Jewish “love of money.” The 1948 war is depicted as having been started not by the five Arab armies that invaded Israel, but by Israel, and the same topsy-turvy version is provided for the 1967 war, with Israel presented as the aggressor even though it was Nasser who, beginning in mid-May 1967, demanded that UN Secretary-General U Thant remove the UN peacekeepers from the Sinai. Nasser announced that he was blockading the Straits of Tiran and moved 100,000 troops into the northern Sinai, approaching ever closer to the border with Israel.

Was the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel a success? Certainly it was for Egypt, which not only got back the entire Sinai with oilfields, airbases, and the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, but also has received from the United States since 1979, in economic and military aid, the astounding sum of $90 billion. But Israel lost those airbases, those oilfields, and that tourist destination of Sharm el-Sheikh. It also had its hopes dashed for closer relations with Egypt. The Egyptians have made no efforts to warm up that “cold peace.”

Now there are new Israeli worries about Egypt, because of the significant expansion of Egypt’s military, despite the fact that Egypt is not threatened by any of its neighbors. This buildup is mainly in offensive weapons, such as tanks, and fighter jets, and not in defensive weaponry such as anti-missile batteries. Most worrisome of all, Egypt has been building military bases in the Sinai that are suited only to house offensive weapons. More on Egypt’s military buildup, and those bases it has built in the Sinai that violate the terms of the Camp David Accords, can be found here: “Violation of peace deal? Israel’s US envoy warns Egypt is ‘reinforcing Sinai bases,’” Jerusalem Post, February 17, 2025:

Egypt has built military bases in Sinai “that can only be used for offensive operations, for offensive weapons,” Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, highlighted on Sunday.

Leiter called it a “clear violation of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel – after some 45 years.”

He also noted that the Israeli government will present Cairo’s military buildup in Sinai “very soon.”

Leiter first said this in a meeting with American Jewish organizations on January 28, however the recording of this was just shared online by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in America on Friday, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.

Ten days ago, Egypt released a video showing its army’s military capabilities, which includes hundreds of tanks, fighter jets, helicopters and navy vessels.

These tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, and ships are all offensive weapons. There was no video of anti-missile or anti-drone systems.

Last May, retired Lt. Col. Eli Dekel, who has been researching Egypt for 60 years, claimed that Egypt had increased its armored forces by hundreds of tanks.

“I did not find an explanation in the media for why Egypt increased its armored forces by 700 tanks. They call it a cold peace, but that’s not what this is,” he told Maariv.

No, this is much worse than a “cold peace.” An increase of seven hundred new tanks can only be understood as preparations for war. And the only conceivable enemy, as far as Egypt is concerned, is Israel.

The ambassador pointed out the violations in the Sinai Peninsula are “a subject that is bound to come up because it is unacceptable.”

According to the Camp David Accords, most of the Sinai was to have been demilitarized to various degrees. The Egypt–Israel peace treaty set a limit to the amount of forces Egypt could place in the Sinai Peninsula, especially within 20–40 kilometers (12–25 miles) of the border with Israel.

For a while, Israel allowed Egyptian forces to send troops further north in the Sinai than was allowed under the peace treaty. This was done because the Egyptian army was fighting ISIS forces in the Sinai. Israel expected that once ISIS was crushed, the Egyptian army would pull back to the lines set out in the Camp David Accords. ISIS was crushed, but not only did the Egyptian army not withdraw, but sent even more troops into the northern Sinai. At the same time, it has turned civilian structures, including 37 schools, into military bases. Egypt has built several large military bases in central and northern Sinai that are an express violation of the peace treaty with Israel.