Egypt is not co-operating with Israel on the narrow buffer zone between Egypt and the Gaza Strip known as the Philadelphia Corridor, Egyptian media reported on Monday.
Last week, Israel claimed it had asked Egypt to take additional security measures and install more surveillance equipment along the Philadelphia Corridor to notify Israel of arms smuggling and detect the use of tunnels by the Palestinian Hamas militant group.
Israel launched retaliatory aerial and ground strikes on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border Hamas attack on October 7.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 23,084 Palestinians have been killed and 58,926 injured. At the same time, some 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Philadelphia Corridor is a 14 kilometres (8.69 miles) long passage guaranteed by the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and patrolled by Egyptian security forces since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated several times that the corridor should be placed under Israeli control. The move, if realised, is expected to separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
