But Egypt has refrained from taking more serious measures against Israel: Unlike Jordan, it has not withdrawn its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
“I believe a solution will be found that satisfies the Israeli side, because no one is interested in any kind of escalation,” said Mohamed Anwar Sadat, an independent Egyptian politician and nephew of the president who signed the 1979 treaty. “It is in the interest of both sides to reach an understanding or agreement to avoid any kind of confrontation.”
Government-controlled media outlets appear to have cooperated in efforts to quell public anger.
Prior to Israel's announcement that it had established control of the Philadelphia Corridor, the rhetoric in the press was nothing short of bellicose. “Egypt is prepared for all scenarios and will never tolerate any infringement, direct or indirect, on its sovereignty and national security,” prominent talk show host Ahmed Moussa wrote in a column in Egypt's leading daily newspaper, Al-Ahram, on May 17.
But after Israel took over the corridor, Moussa went on television to blast social media users who claimed Egypt was weakening, linking those “suspicions” to the Muslim Brotherhood (of which Hamas is an offshoot), an Islamist political group that the Egyptian government has long demonized as a terrorist organization.
“The Philadelphia Corridor is not Egyptian territory,” Moussa said, pointing to a large map during a nine-minute segment on the issue. “It's Palestinian territory. It's not ours.”
Israeli-Egyptian ties have weathered wars, Palestinian uprisings, the 2011 Egyptian revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and the brief presidency of Mohammed Morsi, a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader who won Egypt's first free elections a year later.
Rafah and the eight-mile-long Philadelphia Corridor have often served as points of contact and friction between Egypt and Israel, who jointly implemented a blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized the coastal enclave in 2007. Shortly after, Egypt and Israel agreed on the size of troops that could be stationed around the buffer zone.
But the issue of smuggling remains contentious. When Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005, many Israeli strategists said it was a mistake to open the corridor to smugglers. Current and former Israeli officials say the Rafah crossing became a major route for arms smuggling once Hamas came to power, reaching a peak when security in Egypt deteriorated during Morsi's turbulent presidency.
But Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a military coup to oust Morsi in 2013 and became president a year later. He has since forged a close security partnership with Israel based on shared interests in quelling the insurgency in Gaza and Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel.