Israel is increasingly alarmed by Egypt’s accelerating military build‑up and its fast‑warming relationship with Turkey, developments that Israeli officials and analysts warn could reshape the strategic balance across the Eastern Mediterranean and around Gaza.
For decades, the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty has been a cornerstone of Israel’s regional security, effectively neutralising the largest Arab army on its southern flank. But recent Egyptian arms purchases, expanded deployments in Sinai and Cairo’s defence outreach to Ankara are fuelling doubts in Jerusalem about how stable that equation will be in the long term.
In a rare public warning earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers that the Egyptian army “is building its strength, and this needs to be monitored,” adding that Israel must ensure there is no “excessive buildup of military power” in its neighbour. Senior security officials have echoed those concerns in off‑record briefings, pointing in particular to new Egyptian infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula.
Under President Abdel Fattah al‑Sisi, Egypt has become one of the world’s largest arms importers, shifting much of its shopping from the United States to European suppliers. Cairo has acquired dozens of advanced Rafale fighter jets from France, two Mistral‑class helicopter carriers originally built for Russia, German submarines and a broad range of other air and naval platforms. Defence analysts say these purchases significantly extend Egypt’s ability to project power deep into the Eastern Mediterranean.
More sensitive for Israel is where some of this capability is being entrenched. Over the past several years, Egypt has steadily increased the number of troops and heavy equipment it deploys in Sinai, initially with quiet Israeli consent to combat jihadist groups and smuggling networks. But Israeli officials now say the scale and permanence of the build‑up go well beyond the flexible interpretations of the peace treaty that both sides had previously used.
Israeli media, citing senior security sources, have reported the construction of new airfields and lengthening of runways in Sinai capable of hosting fighter jets, as well as the expansion of ports and naval facilities along the peninsula’s coast. Jerusalem has raised the issue with both Cairo and Washington, arguing that such projects represent serious violations of the treaty’s military annex and erode the buffer that has separated the two armies since 1979.
At the same time, Egypt has been repairing its once‑toxic relationship with Turkey, another worrying trend for Israel. Ties between Cairo and Ankara collapsed after Egypt’s 2013 military coup against Mohamed Morsi, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the two governments backed rival camps in Libya and clashed over maritime boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean.
That estrangement has been steadily reversed since 2020. Ambassadors have been restored, presidents have exchanged high‑profile visits and the two sides have signed a raft of economic and political agreements. In 2025, Egypt and Turkey held their first joint naval exercise in 13 years in the Eastern Mediterranean, a highly symbolic move that also served to rebuild operational interoperability between two of the region’s largest militaries.
Turkish and Egyptian officials have spoken openly about cooperating in defence industries, including drones and potentially advanced fighter programmes, while also signalling a more coordinated approach to Libya and to energy and maritime issues. Both states, along with Qatar, have also positioned themselves as key players in Gaza ceasefire talks, prisoner exchanges and reconstruction planning.
For Israel, which regards Erdoğan’s Turkey as openly hostile and has invested heavily in a counter‑alignment with Greece and Cyprus, the emerging Cairo–Ankara axis is deeply unsettling. Israeli officials fear that a closer Egyptian–Turkish partnership could undercut their efforts to shape Eastern Mediterranean gas routes, weaken Greek‑Cypriot leverage in maritime disputes and narrow Israel’s own strategic room for manoeuvre at sea.
The combination of a more capable Egyptian military, entrenched deeper into Sinai, and a pragmatic rapprochement with Ankara is leading Israeli planners to rethink long‑standing assumptions. While few in Jerusalem believe Egypt currently intends to abandon the peace treaty, there is growing recognition that future political shifts in Cairo – backed by diverse arms suppliers and powerful partners – could one day transform today’s cold peace into a far less predictable reality.