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A retired Israeli diplomat stirred up debate after accusing Egypt of violating the military annex of the 1979 peace treaty with his country.

David Govrin, who served as Israel's ambassador to Cairo from July 2016 to May 2019, claimed Egypt was sending more troops into Sinai than stipulated in the annex of the treaty.

He warned in an with the Hebrew news site, Ynet, on Monday, on the occasion of the publication of his new book, 'Partnership in the Shadow of Rivalry', that Egypt is investing huge amounts of money in military build-up, even as no other country threatens it and despite its tough economic conditions.

A fluent speaker of Arabic, Govrin was posted to Egypt at a tough time for the populous Arab country, both economically and at the level of security.

Almost six months after he submitted his credentials, succeeding Haim Koren, Govrin had to fly back home, together with his small embassy staff, because of unspecified security threats.

He could only return to the Egyptian capital , apparently after these threats subsided down.

This was a time when Egypt's fight against a branch of the Islamic State in Sinai reached its climax, with the fundamentalist group making parts of the north-eastern Egyptian territory a no-go area for Egyptians, amid hopes of establishing an Islamic emirate in the territory which shares borders with Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip and straddles the Suez Canal.

Close coordination

Egypt and Israel coordinated closely during the Arab country's fight against Islamist militancy in Sinai, including by sharing intelligence.

Egypt's fight against the Islamic State in Sinai was so tough that it took the Egyptian army and police almost a decade to eradicate the group, originally a home-grown movement that to the late Islamic State caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in November 2014.

The Egyptian army and police had to comb Sinai inch-by-inch and home-by-home to annihilate the group in Sinai, a territory larger than Israel, the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon combined.

Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, following four wars between the two countries and after Egypt succeeded in liberating Sinai from Israeli occupation.

The military annex of the treaty divides Sinai into several definite security zones and limits the number of troops Egypt can deploy in each of these zones.

It also makes it necessary for Egypt and Israel to deploy a limited number of troops along their shared border.

Nevertheless, Israel approved an Egyptian request to beef up security in Sinai and increase the number of troops in it, as well as use military equipment banned by the military annex of the peace treaty, as the Arab country fought the Islamic State in Sinai.

In March 2023, Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, revealed that as a military intelligence chief in 2011, he was mandated by then-minister of defence, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, to contact the Israelis and request an increase in the number of troops deployed in Sinai.

"The fact is that they [the Israelis] were comprehensive and only demanded some information about the number of troops that would be sent into Sinai," Sisi in a public address.

In 2017, the Egyptian president revealed that Egypt had deployed in Sinai, or 25,000 troops in total, as part of the fight against Islamist militants in the territory.

Israeli violations

Egypt has apparently enhanced its military presence in Sinai even more with Israel intensifying its onslaught on the Gaza Strip, following the 7 October 2023 attacks by the formerly-Gaza ruling Hamas on kibbutzim in southern Israel.

This Egyptian military build-up was especially noticeable near the border with Gaza.

A of the border area by the chief of staff of the Egyptian army in September 2024 had thrown light on this build-up.

This enlarged military presence along the border with Gaza came as Egypt braced for an influx into Sinai of Gaza's population, amid Israeli plans for the depopulation of Gaza and the displacement of its 2.4 million residents into Sinai.

Egypt rarely comments officially on remarks made by Israelis out of official service.

Nevertheless, in Cairo, military experts say Israel is the party violating the terms of its peace with Egypt by occupying the Philadelphi Corridor, a stretch of land that extends on Gaza's side from the Mediterranean in the west to the Israeli border in the east along the Egyptian border with Gaza.

"Egypt has demonstrated commitment to the peace treaty with Israel on all occasions," Nasr Salem, a retired Egyptian army general, told °®Âþµº.

"Nonetheless, in case of threats to its territories, Egypt has the right to boost its military presence wherever it sees fit," he added.

Israeli troops moved to the corridor and the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt in May this year as part of plans to tighten the noose around Hamas in southern Gaza.

Israel also says occupying the corridor serves its plan to crackdown on alleged weapons' smuggling into Gaza.

Egypt has protested both moves, accusing Israel of violating a 2005 agreement that gives the Palestinian Authority the right to police the corridor.

The agreement was signed following Israel's 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

Cold peace

Apart from calling for addressing the capabilities that Egypt is building and not rely on its interpretation of the Arab country's intentions or interests at present, Govrin also threw light on the cold peace between his country and its southern Arab neighbouring country.

The way Egyptians view Israelis, he said, is characterized by dissonance and contradiction.

"On one hand, they feel hostility and hatred because Israel is perceived as an imperialist entity, a foreign plant," he said.

He added that when he arrived in Egypt, he was asked repeatedly about where he was from.

The Egyptians were not, however, convinced of the answer he gave, being born in Israel, insisting instead to ask about the origins of his parents.

"Israel is perceived as a collection of people who came from all over the world to settle in the region, conquer and rob the rights of the Palestinians and their land," he said in his interview with Ynet.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, a move the late Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, paid with his life for taking two years later.

Since then, Cairo and Tel Aviv have been working hard to make this peace functional and alive, being viewed as a cornerstone of regional security.

Nonetheless, this peace remains a government-to-government affair.

Apart from the growing anti-Arab rhetoric on the Israeli street and especially among the far-right which leads the current Israeli government, Israel is still viewed as a 'hostile state' here.

Political analyst, Samir Ghattas, attributes this to the history of animosity between the two countries and hostilities between Israel and the Arabs, in general.

"Egypt and Israel fought four wars against each other and there isn't a house in Egypt where there isn't someone who fought in these wars," Ghattas, the head of local think tank, Middle East Strategic Studies Centre, told TNA.

"These wars left bitter memories inside the Egyptians, causing this gap with Israel to be present until now," he added.