Cairo, Athens to Enhance Cooperation in Energy, Power Linkage

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi during summit talks held in Athens with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the Greek Prime Minister in October 2021. (AFP)
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi during summit talks held in Athens with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the Greek Prime Minister in October 2021. (AFP)
TT

Cairo, Athens to Enhance Cooperation in Energy, Power Linkage

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi during summit talks held in Athens with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the Greek Prime Minister in October 2021. (AFP)
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi during summit talks held in Athens with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and the Greek Prime Minister in October 2021. (AFP)

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis have affirmed their keenness to boost mutual cooperation, especially in energy and power linkage.

During a phone conversation, the two leaders discussed enhancing the strong bilateral ties on all levels, according to Presidential Spokesman Ahmed Fahmy.

Sisi and Mitsotakis also stressed the significance of intensified political consultations between the two countries on issues of mutual concern, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias stressed in October the depth of relations between the two countries and their coordination on all issues of common interest.

This came in a joint press conference in Cairo after a meeting between the two top diplomats.

The two parties described the bilateral ties as “strategic,” explaining that it was agreed to strengthen economic and trade relations, especially on renewable energy.

In December 2022, Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat witnessed in Cairo the signing of an agreement between Telecom Egypt and Grid Telecom, a subsidiary of the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) in Greece, on building a Mediterranean subsea system connecting Egypt and Greece.

The agreement came following an MoU signed in February 2022 during Talaat’s visit to Greece.

Talaat noted that the new cable is one of the shortest paths for data transmission to the Balkans in Eastern Europe and from there to other destinations in Western Europe, which contributes to strengthening Egypt’s strategic position as a global center for communications services and data traffic between the East and West.



Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
TT

Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)

Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed armed groups in the volatile West Bank city.

A military spokesperson declined to give details but said the operation was "relatively similar" to but in a smaller area than one last August, in which hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and helicopters raided Jenin and other flashpoint cities in the occupied West Bank.

It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.

At least four Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday, after 10 were killed a day earlier, Palestinian health services said, and residents reported constant gunfire and explosions.

Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the fighters' increasing use of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were a particular focus of the operation, which included armored bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.

As the operation continued, many Palestinians left their homes in the camp, a crowded township for descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war of Israel's creation.

"Thank God, we were at home, we went out and asked an ambulance to take us out," said a woman who gave her name as Um Mohammad.

Before the raid, which came two weeks after a shooting attack blamed by Israel on gunmen from Jenin, roadblocks and checkpoints had been thrown up across the West Bank in an effort to slow down movement across the territory.

As the raid began, Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces pulled out after having conducted a weeks-long operation to try to reassert control over the refugee camp, dominated by Palestinian factions that are hostile to the PA, which exercises limited governance in parts of the West Bank.

The operation came just two days after the launch of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, with Israeli troops pulling back from their positions in many areas of the enclave.

LEARNING FROM GAZA

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military's security plan in the West Bank and was "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza".

"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of (Israeli) settlers (in the West Bank) and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said in a statement.

Israel's campaign in Gaza, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by bands of Hamas-led gunmen, has left much of the coastal enclave in ruins after 15 months of bombardment. The military has said it has refined its urban warfare tactics in the light of its experience in Gaza, but Shoshani declined to provide details of how such lessons were being applied in Jenin.

Israel considers Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that are backed by Iran as part of a multifront war waged by an axis that includes Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Newly installed US President Donald Trump has appointed a string of senior officials with close ties to the settler movement, and his return to the White House has been welcomed by hardline pro-settler ministers who have pledged to expand settlement building in the West Bank.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries deem Israel's settlements on territory taken in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.