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Egypt and the Sinai: Land Given Back, and Wanted Again

Egypt is the largest Arab country, with more than 100 million people, and Israel's southwestern neighbor. Between the Nile valley, where most Egyptians live, and Israel lies the Sinai Peninsula, a triangle of desert and mountains about three times the size of Israel. The Gaza Strip sits on Sinai's northeastern corner. The Suez Canal, one of the most important shipping lanes on earth, runs along Sinai's western edge.

The "Greater Israel" phrase "from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates" begins here. Some read "the river of Egypt" as the Nile; others as a stream in northern Sinai. Either way, the line runs into Egyptian land. Israel captured the Sinai in 1967 and returned it under the 1979 peace treaty, finishing the withdrawal in April 1982. Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Sinai has come back into Israeli plans in two ways: as a place to push Gaza's population, and, for some Israeli ministers and religious leaders, as land to take again. Egypt has answered by moving troops into the peninsula and warning Israel in public.

What Israeli officials and figures have said​

A cabinet minister: "Occupation Now." In July 2024 Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu shared a post promoting shirts printed with a map of an expanded Israel that included Egypt's Sinai under the slogan "Occupation Now," as reported by the Times of Israel (r/IsraelPalestine, citing the Times of Israel, 9 July 2024). A news account summarized it the same week: "Israeli Minister Amichai Eliyahu called for the occupation of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula" (Globe Eye News on X, 4 July 2024). The Cradle reported that the post he shared called for the army "to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, along with southern Lebanon, southern Syria, and eventually part of Jordan" (The Cradle, reposted by Internationalist 360, 10 January 2025). He kept his job.

A rabbi at a conference with lawmakers. At a conference on the Gaza war attended by Knesset members, Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf "advocated for the 'liberation' of the Sinai region up to the Nile River, describing them as 'integral parts of the land of Israel'" (N. Noir on X, 27 January 2024, video).

"We are returning to Sinai." Rabbi Yisrael Ariel said on video in 2026: "We will soon see the Greater Israel; everything from the Nile to the Euphrates will be in our hands. We are returning to Sinai (Egypt) and the banks of the Jordan; we are reaching Syria... This entire territory belongs to us; we have Ben Gvir, who will make it happen." The posts sharing the video describe National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as one of Ariel's disciples (Andrea Klein on X, 10 June 2026, translation; original Spanish caption).

"Fifteen years from now, Israel will have a war with Egypt." Zionist activist Amiad Cohen said this at a Jewish News Syndicate summit in Israel in June 2026 (video via Chris Menahan). Former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard said in June 2026 that Turkey and Egypt are potential battlegrounds for the next conflict (Sahat English on X, 4 June 2026).

A former ambassador questions Egypt's borders. David Govrin, Israel's former ambassador to Egypt, told Yedioth Ahronoth that "after all these years, and even after 7 October 2023, questions remain about Egypt's genuine recognition of Israel within its 1948 borders," while accusing Cairo of breaking the treaty by strengthening its army in Sinai. Israel "officially demanded an explanation from Egypt for its military activities in the Sinai" in January 2025 (Internationalist 360 / The Cradle, 10 January 2025; Réseau International).

The prime minister. When Netanyahu said "very much" to the Greater Israel vision in August 2025, Middle East Eye reported that the vision "includes occupied Palestinian territory as well as parts of Syria, Egypt and Jordan" (Middle East Eye on X, 13 August 2025).

Go deeper: Voices calling for the Sinai

The plan to push Gaza into Sinai​

In October 2023, days into the Gaza war, Israel's Ministry of Intelligence wrote a "concept paper" proposing that Gaza's civilians be moved to Egypt's Sinai. WikiLeaks, which published the Hebrew document, summarized it: forced displacement "would yield positive and long term strategic results," through "a three stage process including the establishment of tent cities in Sinai and opening of humanitarian corridor, followed by construction of cities in northern Sinai from which there would be no return" (WikiLeaks on X, 2 July 2024). Netanyahu's office called it a "hypothetical scenario" (Sprinter Press on X, 1 November 2023). According to reporting collected by Kit Klarenberg, Netanyahu had sought US pressure on Egypt to take in Gaza's refugees, and an earlier Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, said Netanyahu had proposed settling Palestinians in Sinai (Kit Klarenberg, 30 January 2025). Egypt refused every time.

Go deeper: Gaza into Sinai: the plan and Egypt's refusal

What the old strategy papers said about Egypt​

Oded Yinon's 1982 essay for the World Zionist Organization's journal called the Camp David peace a mistake and made retaking Sinai a goal: "The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-Arab policy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai…for the long run. Egypt does not constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could be driven back to the post 1967 war situation in no more than one day" (Activist Post, 30 January 2025). It also said, "Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel," and imagined a separate Coptic Christian state (Ismailoğlu Pasha on X, quoting the essay). The founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, wrote in his diaries of a Jewish state stretching "from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates," and, according to a 2024 study cited by Fair Observer, of including "the Sinai, Egyptian Palestine, and Cyprus" (Fair Observer, 19 December 2024). Even the narrowest reading of Genesis, which takes "the river of Egypt" to be the Wadi al-Arish stream in northern Sinai rather than the Nile, draws the border inside Egyptian territory.

History also shows Israel reaching for Sinai more than once. The historian Zachary Foster notes the Israeli army nearly took Sinai and Gaza in late December 1948 and stopped only under "intense US and British pressure," and that Yitzhak Rabin in 1963 described the Suez Canal as a boundary (Zachary Foster on X, 3 April 2026). Israel took Sinai again in 1956 and in 1967.

Egypt's answer​

  • 13 August 2025, the day after Netanyahu's "very much": Egypt's Foreign Ministry asked Israel for clarification, saying such rhetoric "undermines stability, rejects the path of peace in the region, and reflects an insistence on escalation," and "contradicts the aspirations of regional and international parties that are committed to achieving security and peace for all the peoples of the region" (Yaffa News Network, 14 August 2025; Maghrebi, 15 August 2025). The governor of North Sinai "threatened an 'astounding' reaction to any foreign entity that may seek to violate Egypt's sovereignty" (Maghrebi). Cairo warned of a "ticking time bomb" that could unravel the treaty (iAqaba, 14 August 2025).
  • 25 August 2025, Egypt's foreign minister: "Egypt will not allow the realization of illusions about the 'Greater Israel'" (Clash Report on X, 25 August 2025).
  • Troops into Sinai. Egypt pushed troops into northern Sinai "to stave off potential Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza" (Daoud Kuttab, The New Arab, 26 August 2025). One estimate put the deployment at about 40,000 troops, above the treaty's limits but notified to Israel (Grok on X, 22 August 2025). Commentators described Egypt building "the Arab world's most powerful army right on that border" (Local Guardian News on X, 8 February 2026).
  • July 2026, Egypt's foreign minister, asked whether Greater Israel had become unattainable: "any project based on imposing a unilateral will will not succeed" (Dearborn.org, 12 July 2026).
  • Egypt joined the 15 August 2025 joint statement of 31 Arab and Muslim states calling the Greater Israel remarks "a direct threat to Arab national security" (Jordan's Foreign Ministry on X). Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry separately rejected Israeli officials' "settlement and expansionist ideas and projects" (The Arabian Mirror).

The Saudi-owned magazine Al Majalla told its readers that Netanyahu's words "should be a wake-up call to hundreds of millions of Arabs who thought such ideas were fanciful," and noted that "Cairo demanded clarification, while Amman denounced the remarks" (Al Majalla on X, 20 August 2025).

The American part​

The United States pays for the peace between Egypt and Israel: Egypt is one of the largest recipients of American military aid, and the treaty's Sinai limits are monitored by a multinational force that includes American soldiers. A retired US Army colonel and former Pentagon adviser, Douglas Macgregor, wrote in June 2025 that the then-commander of US Central Command, General Erik Kurilla, was "known for his close relationship with PM Bibi Netanyahu and his enthusiasm for the Greater Israel Project including seizure of Sinai and the Suez Canal," and that seizing the canal would be impossible "without active American military support" (Douglas Macgregor on X, 30 June 2025). That is Macgregor's account, not a statement by Kurilla. If Sinai ever becomes a battlefield again, American troops are already standing in it.

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that an Israeli cabinet minister promoted occupying Sinai and that Israel's Intelligence Ministry proposed moving Gaza's population into Sinai. CONFIRMED that Egypt formally condemned Greater Israel statements and moved troops into Sinai. STRONG that retaking or using Sinai remains part of Israeli expansionist planning.

Status: Amichai Eliyahu, Uzi Sharbaf, Yisrael Ariel, Itamar Ben Gvir, Amiad Cohen, Jonathan Pollard, David Govrin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Douglas Macgregor, Erik Kurilla, and Zachary Foster are alive. Hosni Mubarak (2020), Theodor Herzl (1904), and Yitzhak Rabin (1995) are deceased. Nothing on this page states that any living person committed a crime.

Sources​

Research captures: twitter/t26__v301.md through twitter/t26__v312.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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