Egypt, Israel discuss Gaza

Middle East Monitor  /  August 9, 2021

An Israeli security delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital of Cairo yesterday to discuss developments in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel’s Wallah news site quoted a high-ranking Israeli source as saying that the Israeli delegation had met with the Egyptian intelligence head, adding that they had discussed “details about Gaza, especially ways to reach a long term ceasefire.”

The Israeli delegation included the head of the former Israeli National Security Council, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and the former Mossad official Eyal Hulata who recently assumed the post of the head of the Israeli National Security Council.

The meeting was reported to have also discussed the “prisoner exchange process”, which Egyptian officials have brokered between Hamas and the Israeli occupation state.

The visit comes amid escalating tensions in Gaza, as a result of the continuous Israeli aggression on the enclave and the tightening of the 14-year-old siege which has led unemployment rates to rise continuously and exacerbated poverty rates.