Did Egypt Undermine the CIA?..."Secretly Amended Gaza Ceasefire Proposal"

CNN Source Report
"Egypt Intelligence Agency Asked to Convey Messages to Both Sides"
"Negotiation Terms Revised Favoring Hamas"

Suspicions have been raised that the failure of the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian armed faction Hamas was orchestrated by the Egyptian intelligence agency.

CNN reported on the 21st (local time), citing three sources familiar with the matter, that some of the conditions of Israel's ceasefire negotiation proposal, which was delivered to Hamas through the mediator Egypt last month, were secretly altered by the Egyptian intelligence agency.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Sources explained that this was also the reason why the content of the ceasefire proposal that Hamas announced it would accept on the 6th differed from the conditions that the mediators Qatar and the United States understood as the tentative final version. At that time, Hamas accepted Egypt's mediation proposal, which included the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the exchange of hostages and detainees, but Israel carried out an airstrike on Rafah, stating that "the ceasefire proposal suggested by Hamas is far from our demands."

The sources pointed to Ahmed Abdel Khalek, the senior deputy director of Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate (GNI), as the central figure behind these suspicions. He was the person who led the task of modifying the ceasefire negotiation conditions and caused confusion in the negotiations by presenting different versions to the two warring parties. They also explained, "Everyone involved in the ceasefire negotiations assumed that Egypt provided the same document (original version) to both Israel and Hamas, but the Egyptian intelligence authorities inserted more of Hamas's demands and did not inform the other mediators."

Upon learning the full story behind the deadlock in the ceasefire negotiations, officials from the United States, Qatar, and Israel reportedly expressed anger, saying, "We were all deceived." In particular, Bill Burns, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who personally visited Cairo, Egypt, to lead efforts for the ceasefire, was said to have been furious upon hearing that Egypt had altered the negotiation terms. Sources noted that he was concerned about appearing to have been complicit in deceiving Israel or being excluded from the ceasefire mediation process.

The CIA spokesperson declined to comment on these reports, and the Egyptian government has also not responded to inquiries regarding these suspicions, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), on the 20th issued arrest warrants for war crimes against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gaza Strip's top leader Yahya Sinwar, among other Israeli and Hamas leaders. This is the first time a U.S. allied leader has become a target of an ICC warrant. However, since Israel is not a member of the ICC, it is considered unlikely that the arrests will actually take place.