Sisi appoints Egypt’s new ambassador to Israel

Egypt’s former envoy to the Arab League has been appointed as the country’s new ambassador to Israel.

According to a Sunday report by Egyptian state news agency MENA, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi named Hazem Khairat (seen below) as Cairo’s new ambassador to Tel Aviv.

Khairat formerly served as Egypt’s deputy foreign minister and also as the country’s ambassador to the South American country of Chile.

No information has been revealed on the exact date of the start of Khairat’s mission, but reports said that he will most probably be dispatched to Israel in September.

Sisi’s decision came three years after Egypt’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, recalled Atef Salem, Cairo’s last ambassador to Tel Aviv, to protest against the regime’s eight-day aggression against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Since then, the Egyptian embassy in Israel has had no top representative.

Israel’s reaction

In a short statement, Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon welcomed Sisi’s decision.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also hailed Khairat’s appointment as an important step in “cementing” bilateral ties between the Tel Aviv regime and Sisi’s administration.

Cairo’s decision “is deeply welcomed in Israel … This is an important piece of news. We appreciate it,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The relations between Egypt and the Israeli regime have been renewed since Sisi took power in the Arab country in 2014 after orchestrating a military coup against Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, a year earlier.

The Israeli media also reported that Sisi and Netanyahu were in close contact during the regime’s deadly offensive against Gaza, which claimed the lives of over 2,000 civilians last summer.