‘We need to examine the role of Egypt on Oct. 7,’ says former IDF intelligence officer

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after his address to the nation Tuesday evening, where he defended Israel's need to maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor and insinuated that Egypt had not done enough to secure the border.

The statement from Egypt's Foreign Ministry said that Netanyahu “tried to use our name to distract Israeli public opinion and block the ceasefire agreement.” 

“Egypt holds the Israel government responsible for the consequences of such statements, which further aggravate the situation and aim to justify aggressive and inciting policies that lead to further escalation in the region,” the ministry stated.

Later on Tuesday evening, a senior Egyptian official attacked the prime minister, saying, “Netanyahu blatantly lied about the Philadelphi route.” 

On Wednesday morning, Hebrew news site Maariv published an interview with former intelligence officer Eli Dekel, who specializes in Egyptian affairs. Dekel noted that it is time for Israel to examine Egypt’s part in the events of Oct. 7. 

He mentioned a recent parade of the Egyptian Fourth Armored Division – “the flagship division” of the Egyptian armored units – during which Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi warned Israel, “Don’t you dare approach Philadelphi.” 

At the same time, only two to three days after the Hamas massacres, Dekel noted, the Egyptian parliament “gave the president a permit, signed a blank slate, according to which the president of Egypt can use his army whenever he sees fit, without going to seek parliamentary approval.” 

Dekel said this demonstrates that Egypt's interest in preventing Israel from discovering what was happening in the Philadelphi Corridor “is not some new madness of the Egyptians, it has been since the beginning of the war.” 

Dekel noted that Egypt is “deeply rooted in Gaza,” helping to rebuild and remove rubble after Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021. He also said Egypt assisted Hamas with removing Islamic terrorists who were harming Egyptian interests since 2016, demonstrating an intimate knowledge of events in the Gaza Strip. 

“Egyptian intelligence has a clear interest in knowing what is happening in Gaza,” Dekel said. 

Noting the lack of good Israeli intelligence leading up to the Oct. 7 attacks, he said that Israel needs to investigate “Egypt’s role in anesthetizing the State of Israel.” 

“When the war began, I suggested in a recorded lecture that the Israel government would do well to examine the Egypt's role in anesthetizing the State of Israel, saying that Hamas is weak and deterred. The question is whether all the contacts we have with Egyptian intelligence were deliberately put to sleep before the war.”  

Despite Hamas’ association with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that Egypt outlawed and has been fighting against internally, Dekel said that “Egypt has no interest in us defeating Hamas.” 

After Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, following the Six-Day War in 1967, Egypt promised not to attack Israel “from the Israel-Egypt border.” Acknowledging that Egypt has honored that agreement, Dekel said, Egypt’s way around the agreement was to train terrorists within Gaza, establishing the “Gaza Fedayeen” – a local branch of the nationalist guerrilla group associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which already existed in Judea and Samaria. 

The Egyptian government has long been aware of the smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor, even working against them when they felt threatened by Hamas' smuggling activity. 

However, analysts argue that the tunnels the IDF discovered below the corridor could not have been constructed and operated without Egypt’s knowledge. 

“Egypt has no interest in us winning any war, certainly it has invested billions of dollars over the years in arming Hamas and so on, and it does not want to lose this asset called Hamas,” Dekel claimed. 

“On the other hand, it is very happy that Israel is striking and dwarfing it, but it will make every effort, as much as it can, to prevent the destruction of Hamas, which is the goal of the State of Israel after October 7," he concluded.