Egypt says peace treaty with Israel ‘strategic choice’

CAIRO

Egypt said Sunday its peace treaty with Israel is a “strategic choice” amid reports of tension between the two sides over Tel Aviv’s offensive in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

“The peace agreement with Israel has been Egypt's strategic choice for 40 years, and it represents a main pillar of peace in the region to achieve peace and stability,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said during a press conference in Cairo with his Slovenian counterpart Tanja Vaillon.

He said there are “set mechanisms” for dealing with any violations of the treaty.

“We approach this agreement from this standpoint,” Shoukry added.

Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979 under which Tel Aviv withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and the two countries normalized their relations.

Media reports emerged about an Egyptian threat to suspend the agreement over Israel’s offensive in Rafah on Egypt’s border.

Egypt has condemned the Israeli attack in Rafah as a “dangerous escalation,” but stopped short of terming it a violation of its peace deal with Israel.

Israel said last week that its capture of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing was not a violation of the peace agreement with Egypt.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 76,600 others injured in a brutal Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack last Oct. 7 that killed nearly 1,200 people.

Seven months into the conflict, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv is committing genocide in Gaza, ordering it to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

South Africa on Friday asked the ICJ to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah as part of additional emergency measures over the war.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi