Egyptian Intelligence Chief Warned Israel of Gaza Crisis—Warnings Ignored Amid Occupation
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Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s intelligence head, urgently traveled to Israel on Sept. 26, 2023, warning of impending escalation in Gaza and urging Israel to ease its suffocating economic blockade—a warning Israel’s government has since denied.
Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel made a critical visit to Israel on Sept. 26, 2023, landing at Ben Gurion Airport for a brief but urgent meeting. Multiple sources confirm that Kamel warned Israeli officials that Hamas was preparing a large-scale operation in Gaza, directly linking the threat to Israel’s ongoing blockade and collective punishment of Palestinians. He implored Israel to make economic concessions to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, but Israeli leadership continued to ignore these pleas. A former Israeli official summarized Kamel’s message as a stark warning: 'If you don’t change course, Gaza is going to blow up in your faces.'
The visit coincided with Israeli leaders commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War—a grim reminder of the cyclical violence fueled by occupation and militarism. The secrecy surrounding which Israeli officials met Kamel, and the subsequent denial by Netanyahu’s office and National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi, highlights the Israeli government’s refusal to acknowledge the consequences of its policies. Despite warnings from seven countries, including a UN envoy and the UAE president, Israel’s leadership dismissed the urgent calls for change.
Analysts in the U.S. and Israel have tried to downplay the warnings, claiming they lacked specific details, while the government remained fixated on internal power struggles and repression in the West Bank. Eleven days after Kamel’s ignored warning, Hamas launched a desperate attack, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages—tragic evidence of the predictable consequences of Israel’s siege and disregard for Palestinian lives. The mishandling of these warnings has sparked outrage in Israel, with demands for an independent inquiry into the government’s failure to prevent yet another round of violence rooted in occupation and injustice.