Egypt has discovered Israeli plots to target Hamas leaders in Cairo and has warned Israel that any attack will be responded to with force, senior Egyptian officials told Middle East Eye.
“Intelligence reports suggest that Israel has been plotting to assassinate Hamas leaders in Cairo for some time, as Egypt had already foiled an earlier attempt during ceasefire negotiations in the city over the past two years,” a high-level security source told MEE.
On Tuesday, around 12 air strikes struck residential buildings in the Qatari capital, Doha, about 4pm local time (1pm GMT), targeting Hamas leadership, an attack that has sparked condemnations across the region.
The senior Egyptian officials’ statements to MEE came in response to threats by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would target Hamas in other countries.
“Any attempt on the lives of Hamas leaders on Egyptian soil would be considered by Egypt as a violation of its sovereignty and, accordingly, a declaration of war by Israel, which we would not hesitate to retaliate against,” the security source said.
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Although it has not been officially declared that Hamas’ leading figures have lived in Egypt, the security source told MEE, in exclusive statements, that several have resided in the country for years, even before the current Gaza war. Their identities, numbers and exact locations remain undisclosed for security reasons.
According to the source, Egyptian officials have urged their Israeli counterparts to return to negotiations and work towards reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, rather than dragging the region into endless wars and escalating tensions.
“Egyptian–Israeli relations have already been tense in recent months due to the indecisiveness of Tel Aviv towards a possible Gaza truce,” the source noted.
Egyptian officials have been wary of attempts to shift responsibility for Gaza’s future – including potential displacement of Palestinians into North Sinai – onto Cairo.
On 19 August, MEE revealed that Egypt had deployed around 40,000 troops along the Egyptian border with Gaza to hinder the possible passage of Palestinians into Sinai.
MEE also reported that Cairo has been sidelined in the collapsing Gaza ceasefire negotiations, amid fears that a major Israeli assault on the enclave could force Palestinians to breach the Sinai border and trigger chaos.
Correspondence between Egypt and Israel has been completely cut off, with no progress in talks to secure a truce in Gaza, one senior intelligence official said last week, prior to the Doha attack.
‘Egypt is not defending Hamas’
Meanwhile, a senior military official said that Israel’s strike in Doha did not involve Egyptian skies. “No Israeli aircraft involved in the Doha attack crossed Egyptian airspace at all,” they said.
The army official further confirmed that: “Egypt had no prior knowledge of the Doha strike and that there was absolutely no coordination between Egypt, Israel or the US regarding the operation.”
“A Chinese air defence system is currently deployed in the Sinai Peninsula, bordering Israel, making it impossible for any aircraft to cross without being permitted beforehand or detected,” the official told MEE.
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In his video address following the Doha strikes, Netanyahu threatened to target Hamas anywhere.
“I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists: you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will,” he said.
He compared Hamas’ 7 October 2023 assault to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, framing Israel’s campaign against Hamas as part of a global fight against “terrorism”.
“We did exactly what America did when it went after al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and when it killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan,” Netanyahu argued.
A prominent security analyst who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity, for safety concerns, sees the sources’ warnings as less about Hamas itself and more about how Cairo sees its place in the region.
“Egypt is not defending Hamas – it views the group with suspicion and ties it to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood,” the analyst argued.
“But Egypt sees itself as the most strategic Arab country, and any Israeli strike on its soil would be seen as a form of humiliation. It would undermine Egypt’s prestige and jeopardise the regional status it has been trying to preserve despite Doha being more influential in the peace talks over the past months.”
Cairo has historically played a central role in mediating between Israel and Palestinian factions, especially Hamas. But in recent months it has been increasingly sidelined from Gaza ceasefire talks, amid fears in Cairo that an Israeli ground assault on the enclave could drag Egypt into the conflict.
“Egypt’s ability to act as a credible mediator in Gaza would collapse if Israel were allowed to carry out assassinations in Cairo unchecked,” the analyst explained.
“The country’s regimes have invested heavily in this role. An attack in the capital would shatter that image and show the region that Egypt cannot even protect its own backyard,” he added.
Egypt was the first Arab country to normalise ties with Israel, signing a US-brokered peace treaty in 1979 despite popular opposition. Egyptians have mostly been at loggerheads with successive regimes over normalisation, considering Israel an enemy and an occupier of Palestine.
