The Sinai Peninsula in Egypt's northeast is ruled by Bedouin gangs. In 2017, Ibrahim al-Arjani took control of these gangs and turned into a businessman. He runs Ya Hala, a company that helps people travel between Gaza and Egypt while secretly moving weapons to Hamas in Gaza. Egypt's decision to let weapons reach Hamas might seem strange, but when you understand their partnership with al-Arjani, it starts to make sense.
Ya Hala is a travel consulate company founded by Al-Arjani. It allows Gazans to visit Cairo. But, it's a puppet, enabling the corrupted business — smuggling arms — to be passed through a normal / not suspicious company. It hides Egypt's intelligence collaboration 3 with Ibrahim al-Arjani's crooked companies 3. Sinai and Hamas have many connections throughout the Middle East. Sinai is the last stop before arms reach Hamas in Gaza, where Bedouin gangs led by Al-Arjani sneak the arms into Hamas's tunnels. The U.S. and Israel warned Egypt about weapon smuggling. But, Egypt has kept ignoring it 2. This smuggling of weaponry and exploiting Ya Hala’s power in the Egypt-Gaza border is an easy card for Egypt to make revenue, resulting in a minimum of $88 million 4. By ignoring the calls from the United States and Israel about the issue of smuggling arms that would end up empowering Hamas, the business with Al-Arjani would keep going and lead to making more money.
Egypt's greedy move is a way to cut some of its debts to major countries 4. Yet, it had led to many consequences. It will lead to more by exploiting its borders. Caused three major issues, them being: the smuggling of arms and high-tech weapons into Gaza leading to diplomatic tension between Egypt, Israel, and the U.S. resulting in the violation of the peace treaty brokered by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s.
Scoping into before October 7th, 2023, and the aftermath of it. The United States and Israel had warned Egypt about the smuggling of arms from Sinai to Gaza 2. The Egyptian Intelligence had turned a blind eye to it, even though sometimes they took care of it, Egypt does not have a rule inside Sinai, its Bedouin gangs rule Sinai, where through El-Arish, they smuggle arms to Hamas. With the continued warnings from the United States, Egypt had bought peace cheaply. The indifference from Egyptian intelligence had caused October 7th to be the single deadliest day in Israeli history, according to Haaretz. It couldn’t be the single deadliest day without Egypt’s help to smuggle anti-tank guided missiles and short- and medium-range missiles.
This leads to a bigger problem. Egypt plays a main player when it comes to wars in Gaza, especially in the current war, where Egypt, with its connections with Hamas, along with Qatar, plays a role in the release of the hostages, even though the first hostage deal with clinched by Qatar 2. The Egyptians cannot deliver the goods. It becomes an issue when Egypt, which is the same player that would provide Hamas with its militant power to become the Hamas that we know today, just to benefit its economy, is working alongside Israel and the United States to negotiate hostage release deals, and it even sounds hypocritical and greedy at the same time. This creates diplomatic tension between Egypt, Israel, and the United States which would put Egypt in more strict regional restrictions from the Israeli side that arise from security concerns.
According to the State Department, Egypt is a critical defense alliance, where “Egypt is a valued U.S. partner in counterterrorism, anti-trafficking, and regional security operations, which advance both U.S. and Egyptian security. The decades-long defense partnership is a pillar for regional stability”. How would Egypt, while it’s allowing the smuggling of arms, would still be a critical defense partner with the United States? The United States is trying with all of its power to lower the tension between Egypt and Israel, it has attempted to broker a solution to the smuggling problem that is amenable to all parties, yet, Egypt still claims that Israel has fake allegations regarding the smuggling of arms to Hamas is sabotaging its relationship with the U.S.1 The American government is the guarantor of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, under the conditions of making sure that the Egypt-Gaza border wouldn’t be a threat to the Israeli nation-state, yet, with the ongoing violations of its border with Gaza, Egypt is not meeting this condition. Even though it did not attack Israel directly, yet, its apathy and inaction allowed Hamas to be much more powerful and have its arsenal of high-tech arms and weaponry.
The existence of Egyptian puppets, just like Ya Hala, to do Egypt’s dirty work, is severely detrimental for Egypt. It is putting Egypt’s Israeli-American relations on the edge of shattering. Especially at times when Egypt has a lot of debt to major countries, $8.8 billion is owed to five members of Paris Club countries, including Germany ($2.4 billion), Japan and France ($2.3 billion each), and the UK and the US ($0.9 billion each). That being said, when Egypt publicly knows, the United States, that the debt that they will be taking in the future will be used to support terrorist organizations like Hamas, it’s most probably, that Egypt won’t be able to take debts from any other countries, and its relationships with other countries won’t be as stable as they are today, especially with regional countries like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Works Cited
- United States, Congress, Sharp, Jeremy M. The Egypt-Gaza Border and Its Effect on Israeli-Egyptian Relations, Library of Congress Washington DC Congressional Research Service, 2008.
- Anonymous. “Cairo Ignored Israeli Warnings about Gaza Arms Smuggling. Egypt’s Apathy Led to October 7: Opinion.” Haaretz.Com, Haaretz, 17 Apr. 2024, www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-04-18/ty-article-opinion/.premium/cairo-ignored-israeli-warnings-about-gaza-arms-smuggling-egypts-apathy-led-to-october-7/0000018e-ed65-dbb3-a3bf-fdede15d0000.
- Yousuf, Ismael. 2022, www.alestiklal.net/ar/article/dep-news-1640848057.
- Menzies, Venetia. “The Company Taking Refugees out of Gaza - and ‘Making Millions.’” The Times & The Sunday Times: Breaking News & Today’s Latest Headlines, The Sunday Times, 27 Apr. 2024, www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gaza-refugees-company-smuggling-egypt-zt6m0txnb.