Egypt would have “quietly” changed the terms of the proposed ceasefire agreement in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, surprising the negotiators and effectively ruining the talks. This was revealed by three sources cited by CNN, according to whom the hand belonged to Egyptian intelligence. According to rumors, Hamas’ May 6 announcement on the ceasefire agreement with Israel did not concern the agreement that Qatar and the US believed had been submitted to the group and the changes made by Egyptian intelligence provoked the ire of officials USA, Qatar and Israel. “We were all deceived,” one of the sources told CNN.
The director of the CIA, William Burns, who was in the region when he learned of the “Egyptian changes”, is described by the same source as angry and embarrassed. No comment from the CIA as well as from the Egyptian government. According to what CNN gathered, the person responsible for the changes would be a high-ranking Egyptian intelligence official, Ahmed Abdel Khalek (number two of Cairo intelligence chief Abbas Kamel), who – according to a deep throat – told the Israelis one thing and another for Hamas to get the group’s green light but without informing the other mediators or the Israelis. Three weeks later the talks have stalled and the truce on the war seems like a mirage.
