Israel accuses Egypt of breaking 1979 peace treaty with Sinai buildup

Israeli Ambassador to US warns Egypt’s military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula constitutes a ‘very serious violation’ of the 1979 peace treaty brokered by President Jimmy Carter.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

A senior Israeli diplomat has accused Egypt of violating the landmark peace treaty between the two countries by militarizing the Sinai Peninsula.

Late last month, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Yehiel Leiter, addressed a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump in the White House.

A video of Leiter’s address during the event was published on Friday, only to be later removed.

During his remarks, Leiter blasted Egypt for militarizing the Sinai Peninsula, a move that, if verified, would constitute a “very serious violation,” Leiter said.

In 1979, then-president Jimmy Carter brokered the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, ending 31 years of hostilities and establishing full relations between the two countries.

The agreement, which was predicated on Israel’s return of the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, imposed strict limits on Cairo’s rights to deploy armed forces to the Sinai, including a single armored division in the Suez Canal Zone, four battalions of border police in Central Sinai, and with no military presence in the eastern Sinai, facing the Israeli frontier.

Beginning in 2013, Israel has approved temporary deployments of Egyptian forces in the Central and Eastern Sinai to combat Islamist forces in the Peninsula or to curb Hamas smuggling into the Gaza Strip.

However, according to Leiter, Egypt is now constructing military facilities in the Sinai with clear offensive military capabilities.