Meeting between Israel, Egypt leaders canceled amid minister's comment on Gaza: report

Egypt has allegedly canceled a planned meeting between Israeli and Egyptian leaders amid a slip of the tongue by an Israeli minister over security cooperation between the countries, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

Last week, Yuval Steinitz, former Israeli Strategic Affairs and current Energy minister, said that Egyptian forces had flooded tunnels in the Gaza Strip enclave at the request of Israel.

"Coordination on security issues between Egypt and Israel is at an all-time high," the minister told Israeli reporters, adding that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi flooded the tunnels "partly because we asked him to."

Reports in Saudi Arabia and other Arab media outlets, cited by the Israeli Channel 2 news, said Egyptian officials were furious at Steinitz's slip of the tongue and decided to cancel an upcoming meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo.

Israel refuted the report and said that Netanyahu "did not have a scheduled trip to Egypt."

Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, and have coordinated closely on security matters. However these affairs are usually kept under wraps, and Steinitz's comments drew criticism from Israeli defense officials, the Israel channel 2 news reported.

The Gaza Strip is an area where Israeli and Egyptian forces cooperate, as it is located between the countries.

Israelis living in southern communities near the Gaza Strip are concerned by the sound of drilling, presumably of underground tunnels which Palestinian militants may use to carry out attacks.

The issue of the tunnels, which were used in 2006 in the kidnap of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, was also one of the main topics on the agenda during 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza the summer of 2014 summer.

Egypt has its own problems with Hamas, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood which Sisi dethroned in 2013 protests.

Reports said the coordination between Israel and Egypt also involves battling Salafist terror cells in the Sinai Peninsula.

Israel helped Egypt locate the remains of a Russian plane which crashed in Sinai in October, 2015, while Egypt took an active part in negotiating cease-fires between Israel and Hamas in the recent bouts of fighting.

Another sign of warming relations between the countries came in January, when a new Egyptian ambassador arrived in Tel Aviv after three years without a top envoy in the embassy.

The former ambassador was recalled in October 2012 by then Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood, following Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip of that year. Endit