Report: Israel allows Egypt to double troop numbers in Sinai

Israel has also reportedly carried out over 100 air strikes in the Sinai with Egypt's approval

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Egyptian soldiers guard at a hospital treating the wounded from a jihadist attack that killed more than 300 worshippers at a North Sinai mosque on November 24, 2017
Egyptian soldiers guard at a hospital treating the wounded from a jihadist attack that killed more than 300 worshippers at a North Sinai mosque on November 24, 2017MOHAMED EL-SHAHED (AFP/File)

Egypt has more than doubled the number of its soldiers stationed in the Sinai peninsula to fight the Islamic State terror group, Israel's public broadcaster Kan reported on Wednesday. 

Under the 1979 peace treaty, Israel and Egypt must agree on the latter's deployment of troops in the restive peninsula, bedeviled in recent years by an Islamist insurgency. 

Israel has agreed to successive requests from Cairo, according to the report, leading to a massive accumulation of Egyptian forces in the desert territory that borders Israel to the south. 

However Israeli officials told the outlet that on several occasions the Egyptian military sent additional soldiers into the Sinai without a green light from Israel, prompting the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to file a complaint with the international monitoring force that monitors the peace treaty. 

Jihadists, largely those belonging to IS' Sinai branch, have taken aim at military, police and civilian targets in the peninsula and elsewhere in Egypt over the last several years, killing hundreds. 

They are believed to be behind a gun attack on a Sufi mosque in December last year, the deadliest attack in the country's history, as well as multiple attacks on Coptic Christian targets and the downing of a Russian passenger jet in 2015.

Wednesday's report comes only weeks after the New York Times reported that Israeli fighter jets, drones and helicopters have carried out over 100 air strikes on jihadists targets in the Sinai, with Egypt's approval.

Israel reportedly intervened in the vast desert territory to its south after becoming alarmed at Egypt's inability to throttle the insurgency. 

Since authoritarian military chief Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi overthrew the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, relations with Israel have warmed. 

In September he held his first public meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. 

Egypt has aligned its foreign policy with that of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, nominally placing them alongside Israel and against Iran. 

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