Egypt's president refuses to receive phone call from Netanyahu

Israeli media sources reported yesterday that Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, refused to receive a phone call from the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, due to the disagreements between the two sides amidst ongoing Israeli threats to carry out a military operation in the Rafah area and the Philadelphi Corridor located between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip.

In a report, Israel’s Channel 13 cited two “informed” sources who said that Netanyahu’s National Security Council had approached Cairo requesting to coordinate a conversation between the two officials, “to no avail.”

The channel noted that the last conversation between Al-Sisi and Netanyahu took place in June last year, following the operation carried out by the Egyptian Central Security Forces member, Mohamed Salah Ibrahim, in the southern border area of the country, in which he killed three Israeli soldiers and injured a fourth in an exchange of fire.

Channel 13 said this comes against the backdrop of escalating disagreements with the Egyptian side regarding Israel’s plans for the Philadelphi Corridor, the land along the Egypt-Gaza border.

There has been no official comment on these reports.

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