Egypt’s Sinai Operations: Assessing Security Intentions, Impacts and Challenges
In January 2023, after a decade of counterinsurgency campaigns in the Sinai Peninsula against Islamic-State-Affiliated groups and allied local tribal groups, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced the “end of terrorism” in the region.
In early 2025, Israel raised concerns over increased military buildup in the Sinai Peninsula citing that the Egyptian military presence had offensive capabilities that contravenes the 1979 peace treaty.
Egypt has not announced the intentions of the military buildup in the Sinai but by considering the recent historical trajectory of Egypt’s counterinsurgency, analysis points to potential Egyptian concerns of wider impacts from the Gaza war on border controls, neighbouring military activities and the capacity for renewed Islamist militancy activity in the Sinai.