Egypt Just Sent 40,000 Troops to Rafah – And Israel is Losing It

Right, so Israel’s talent for self-sabotage apparently knows no bounds. In Doha, it turned peace talks into a crime scene, firing missiles into the very capital hosting Hamas negotiators. Now Egypt says it has uncovered a carbon copy of those events aimed at them: a foiled Israeli plot to blow up diplomacy in Cairo. And despite Sisi’s slavish devotion to Israel and the US military funding it brings him, who would doubt Egypt here; it’s the grim reality of a state so addicted to impunity it will assassinate any peace table it seems rather than sit at it. Netanyahu even bragged that murdering Hamas leaders abroad would “remove obstacles” to a deal — as if diplomacy were a demolition job. Well to a madman like him, it probably does. Egypt, long accused of complicity, has nothing to gain by making this up though. Israel’s hubris and impunity appears to now be blowing up with another erstwhile ally and I’m all for more of that.
Right, so Egyptian officials have revealed that their intelligence services had foiled an Israeli attempt to assassinate Hamas leaders in Cairo. According to senior figures cited by Middle East Eye, Cairo had already thwarted one such plot during earlier ceasefire talks and now remained on high alert. Egypt’s reaction was thunderous: any Israeli strike within its borders would not be treated as a mere violation of protocol or a regrettable incident but as a declaration of war, though I wonder to myself that if Cairo had already foiled this, why not speak up earlier and perhaps put Israel off its strike on Doha if they had been rumbled?
Nevertheless, this is absolutely more than just a routine diplomatic squabble. It was the most direct warning Egypt had issued to Israel since the Camp David treaty of 1979. The message from Cairo was therefore: what Israel did in Doha, it would not be allowed to do in Cairo, the message to Israel was we stopped you once, try it again and its war, though of course, with Sisi in charge, that’s very much I’ll believe it when I see it territory and Israel might well think the same thing.
The episode forces uncomfortable questions into the open however. Why does Israel believe it can assassinate negotiators in the capitals of mediators? How credible is Egypt’s claim, and why would Cairo risk fabricating such a story and releasing it now when its entire US aid lifeline depends on restraint? What does it say about Israel’s war aims that it appears more committed to killing negotiators than securing hostages or reaching a truce? And most urgently: what happens if Israel decides to test Egypt’s red line?
To pretend that Israel’s behaviour in Doha and Cairo is some aberration would be wilful blindness, frankly it’d be the preserve of our bought and paid for politicians at this point, who’d put anything past Israel anymore? The state has made a career out of cross-border assassinations. From multiple raids on Beirut over the last several decades, killings in Tunis, car bombings in Damascus and so much more not to mention decades of persecution across Palestine. Israeli operatives have demonstrated contempt for borders at every turn, in just the last month, they’ve taken potshots at no fewer than 7 states, from Gaza and the West Bank, to Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Tunisia and of course Qatar.
The justification is always couched in “security.” Israeli security at the expense of every other nations security around them. Yet the timing often reveals the truth of the matter: these assassinations sabotage negotiations or take shots at those holding them to account. The persecution of Gaza and the West Bank, striking the Houthis who continue to fire on Israel in solidarity with Palestine, shots at Tunisia to disrupt a civilian led aid flotilla, disruption of peace talks in Doha. They aren’t about neutralising threats; they’re about killing politics itself. Every time the possibility of diplomacy appears, Israel snuffs it out with violence because it doesn’t meet their aims.
The Doha strike was a textbook example. As Hamas officials conferred with mediators, Israeli missiles crashed into Qatar’s capital. Some Hamas officials were killed, a Qatari officer was too, and the neutrality of Doha was turned to ash, despite boasting the presence of the largest US airbase in the Middle East. Netanyahu did not even bother with plausible deniability. He boasted that eliminating Hamas leaders abroad would “remove the main obstacle” to a Gaza truce. Murder, in his telling, was a shortcut to peace. That is how deranged he is.
This behaviour is consistent with a deeper pathology: Israel lies to justify whatever it wishes to do. When it wanted to starve Gaza, it fabricated stories that Hamas had looted UN food aid. The World Food Programme flatly denied it. When it wanted to legitimise its bombing spree after October 7th, it allowed disgusting atrocity stories to circulate worldwide before sheepishly backtracking when they were exposed for lies. When it wanted to keep pressure on Iran, it endlessly exaggerated Tehran’s nuclear programme despite repeated IAEA confirmations of compliance. And when it bombs schools, hospitals, or aid convoys, it reflexively claims there were “human shields,” almost always without evidence, never being pushed to present it for fear of those demands being turned back on those making them with accusations of antisemitism.
Israel’s record is one of fabrication, impunity, and impunity built on fabrication. Against this background, Egypt’s claim of a foiled assassination in Cairo is not at all implausible. It is utterly unsurprising, the only actual surprise is Egypt having admitted it.
Egypt’s disclosure was pretty blunt as it happens. Senior officials told Middle East Eye that they had uncovered Israeli attempts to kill Hamas leaders during ceasefire talks in Cairo. One such attempt had already been thwarted. Egypt responded not with diplomatic notes but with military mobilisation. Forty thousand troops have been deployed to the Gaza frontier since last month, ostensibly to block the passage of Palestinians into the Sinai, Sisi all over as such a move is, but it was also a signal that if Israel dared to repeat Doha in Cairo, it would potentially face an army, not a press release, positioned to do so at the very least.
Egyptian sources described any Israeli attack as a sovereignty violation so grave that it would amount to a declaration of war. Cairo has apparently now drawn its red line.
This was not rhetoric alone either, as easy as it is frankly to dismiss anything Sisi might say in such regards. Ynet confirmed that Egypt had scaled back coordination with Israel in intelligence and security matters after the Doha strike. Relations were already tense, with Egyptian officials frustrated at Israel’s “indecisiveness” over a Gaza truce. The reduction of coordination signalled that Cairo was not bluffing.
It is worth underlining the scale of the troop surge. Forty thousand soldiers is not the number you send for show, nor to just deter Palestinians from entering. It is a fighting force, capable of holding and defending territory, securing border logistics, and preparing for escalation. Egypt wants the world—and Israel—to see that this is not another Arab state issuing empty threats, but that it is prepared to act. Again, I’ll still believe it when I see it though.
The collapse of mediation norms has wider consequences though. If mediators are not safe, then diplomacy across the Middle East collapses. Talks over Lebanon, Syria, or Iran become impossible too, you clearly cannot deal with Israel diplomatically over anything. The precedent set in Doha, and threatened in Cairo, is catastrophic: Israel will pursue its enemies even into the negotiating room.
Egypt’s sharp reaction is not just about the here and now either, it is reinforced by decades of Israeli disregard. In early 2025, an Israeli military analysis website, Nziv, published a scenario envisioning a strike on the Aswan High Dam. The projections were apocalyptic. A partial collapse would kill nearly two million people. A total failure could kill up to 10.5 million. Whole cities—Aswan, Luxor—would be swept away. Power generation would be crippled, infrastructure annihilated.
The outrage in Cairo was immediate. Egyptian lawmaker Mostafa Bakry responded with defiance, warning that if Israel attempted such madness, Egypt’s army could overrun Tel Aviv “in one day.”
Even if speculative, the scenario mattered. It revealed a mindset: that in Israeli strategic circles, nothing was off-limits. Egypt’s most vital infrastructure, its most celebrated national project, could be imagined as expendable. For Egyptians, this was no theoretical exercise. They remembered that in the 1960s and 1970s, Israeli planners had indeed considered striking the dam. The historical memory is seared: Israel has never treated Egyptian sovereignty as sacred.
Thus, when Egyptian intelligence revealed a foiled assassination plot in Cairo, it was not conjuring a fantasy. It was pointing to a consistent pattern. From threats against the dam to strikes in Doha, Israel has behaved as if Egypt is merely another arena for its power plays.
The central question is credibility. Sceptics might well justifiably ask: why should we believe Egypt when they’ve positioned themselves so closely to Israel under Sisi? The answer lies in who has the incentive here.
Israel thrives on fabrication. False aid theft stories justified starvation. Atrocity myths after October 7th legitimised bombing campaigns. Nuclear exaggerations about Iran provided cover for endless pre-emptive strikes. Every fabrication strengthened Israel’s impunity.
Egypt, by contrast, would gain nothing from lying. If caught fabricating, it would jeopardise its 1.3 billion dollars in US military aid, destroy its credibility as mediator, and hand Israel a propaganda victory. Sisi’s regime, heavily dependent on American support, cannot afford such risks. The cost of fabrication would outweigh any possible domestic benefit.
That is why Egypt’s warning actually, must be taken seriously and not just because Israel already struck Doha. It is backed by troop deployments, by reductions in coordination, and by language not heard since the 1979 treaty. Cairo has no reason to play games.
The implications are enormous compared to Qatar though.
First, the Camp David framework is already fragile. Since 1979, it has been the bedrock of American strategy, ensuring that Israel would not face Egypt as a hostile military power. Israel has already been violating Egyptian sovereignty by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor, the Gaza side of the Rafah Border Crossing, which Sisi has permitted, but a direct strike would almost certainly see Camp David effectively unravel. Cairo’s troop surge and declaration-of-war language show that deterrence is already cracking and this isn’t actually even the first mobilisation of troops to the Rafah border region.
Secondly, mediation is now in ruins. If Doha is unsafe and Cairo is under threat, diplomacy cannot function. No negotiator will attend talks under the shadow of Israeli missiles and holding them further away just exposes the pointlessness of talks all the more, when considering the risk of being attacked by one side that you are supposed to be mediating with.
Third, US complicity has also been exposed. Washington said nothing when Doha was bombed until it was too late. It has said nothing about Cairo’s warnings. The silence reveals the priorities to all: protecting Israeli impunity matters more than protecting allies like Qatar and Egypt. This corrodes trust. Arab states will now see that the US will not act even when its own partners are endangered.
At the heart of all this therefore lies a moral question. What kind of state is so obsessed with eliminating enemies that it will bomb mediators during negotiations? What does it reveal that Israel seems more committed to assassinating negotiators than to rescuing hostages or securing a ceasefire?
The answer, obviously, is that Israel does not want diplomacy. It wants to ensure diplomacy cannot succeed. By targeting Hamas leaders abroad, it sabotages mediation itself. This is not removing obstacles to peace. It is eliminating the very possibility of peace.
Egypt’s warning, then, is not just strategic but moral. It insists that sovereignty matters, that mediators must be respected, and that even in an era of impunity there are limits. Cairo is saying: you will not murder negotiators in our capital. If you try, you will not find pliant acquiescence—you will find war.
The foiled Israeli plot in Cairo is a watershed. Egypt has no incentive to fabricate. Its troop surge, its declaration that any attack would be war, and its reduced coordination with Israel prove seriousness, even if nagging doubts persist for those of us familiar with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Placed alongside Doha, Netanyahu’s threats, and the long history of Israeli disregard—from assassination campaigns to speculation about striking the Aswan Dam—the credibility of Egypt’s claim is nevertheless overwhelming in my view.
Mediation norms have been detonated. U.S complicity is laid bare. Peace Accords barely hold together. And the region now teeters on the edge of even wider war in the Middle East. And of course its all down to one man desperate to stay in power no matter what and a coalition government determined to wipe what remains of Palestine from the map.
The US might not be around to help Israel either as its not just Egypt speculating about its next move after the strike on Doha, but Qatar is too and that biggest US airbase in the Middle East could be mothballed if Qatar can’t trust the US for its security – they do have other options as it happens, so mothballing Al-Udeid Airbase and sending 10,000 US troops packing might seem unlikely, but not impossible. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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