Tiran and Sanafir: Red Sea islands are now a chokehold over Egypt's security

Middle East Eye

3 days ago

The Egyptian news website Mada Masr recently reported that Saudi Arabia was pushing to establish a US military base on the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, reigniting one of the most dangerous files in Egypt's abandonment of its sovereignty.
While the Egyptian regime issued unofficial denials via its media mouthpieces, the government has not formally responded.
This crisis reopens a wound that never fully healed: for the first time in modern Egyptian history, its president in 2017 openly ceded part of the country's territory, even claiming it was never Egyptian, while persecuting and jailing anyone who dared to oppose the move.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's declaration that Tiran and Sanafir were Saudi islands ignored historical, geographical and legal facts. It overlooked the fact that the islands were explicitly mentioned in the Camp David peace accords, raising a crucial question: if they were Saudi territory, why wasn't Saudi Arabia a party to that agreement?
Beyond the legal debate, the heart of the issue lies in the islands' strategic location. Tiran and Sanafir are not merely isolated patches of land in the Red Sea; they are natural fortresses controlling the Strait of Tiran, the only maritime artery to the Gulf of Aqaba, directly linking Egypt's southern Sinai ports with Israel's Eilat and Jordan's Aqaba. Whoever controls these islands essentially holds Sinai's maritime lifeline by the throat.
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Losing them represents not just a loss of land, but the collapse of Egypt's first line of defence in southern Sinai, creating a strategic isolation that weakens Egypt's ability to manoeuvre in any conflict.
More profoundly, this step did not occur in a vacuum. The handover was part of a broader regional reconfiguration that redrew spheres of influence to serve a central goal: ensuring Israel's dominance over the region's land and sea, while sidelining Egypt as a central player in favour of a rising Gulf role in the Israeli-American security framework.
Key maritime chokepoint
Since the Abraham Accords were signed, Israel has entered a new phase of geopolitical empowerment. Granting Saudi Arabia sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir, a deal approved by Israel in 2022, further shifted the regional centre of gravity from Egypt to the Gulf, placing Israel's hand on a key strategic maritime chokepoint now governed by open or implicit normalisation deals.
Crucially, these arrangements limit Egypt's ability to play any significant role in the Palestinian file, especially with regards to major crises like the war on Gaza. Israel, backed by the US and the Gulf, now holds the keys to vital sea crossings. Any Egyptian move to support Gaza is thus tightly controlled and precisely calculated.
Tiran and Sanafir are not just neglected islands; they are the gateway to Sinai's security and the key to Israel's dominance over the Red Sea
For years, Israel has sought to build its strategic economic and military depth through the corridor connecting Eilat to the Mediterranean, in direct competition with the Suez Canal. The Red Sea - from Bab el-Mandeb to Tiran and Sanafir - has thus become a de facto Israeli sphere of influence, strangling Gaza, pressuring Egypt, and tying the Gulf to Israel with inseparable security bonds.
Iran and Turkey also play key roles in this landscape. Iran, through its support of the Houthis in Yemen, aims to keep pressure on Israel and the US in the south, turning the Red Sea into a theatre of indirect confrontation with the West. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait has become a pressure point in the hands of the Houthis, who have not hesitated to threaten Israeli and western shipping.
Turkey, meanwhile, aims to solidify its military and economic foothold in the Red Sea and East Africa, especially after strengthening its presence in Sudan and building soft military alliances in the Horn of Africa. Ankara views the Red Sea as part of its broader project to rebuild contemporary Ottoman influence, balancing competition with the Israeli-Gulf axis on one hand and rivalry with Iran on the other.
Thus, the Tiran and Sanafir crisis cannot be viewed in isolation. Control over the islands gives Israel and its allies an edge in countering Iranian influence in the Red Sea, and blocks any Turkish attempt to expand its influence in Africa northwards. It also serves as an additional pressure point on Egypt, which now finds itself caught between regional powers clashing over an increasingly volatile Red Sea.
Disastrous consequences
Indeed, Tiran and Sanafir are no longer merely an Egyptian-Saudi issue. They are a central node in a complex security and economic network, deftly managed by Israel through normalisation, economic plans and military projects, as Turkey and Iran carefully attempt to counterbalance or challenge this hegemony.
Keeping the Strait of Tiran permanently open under American and Israeli guarantees gives Tel Aviv an unobstructed gateway to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, completing its regional dominance project that economically suffocates Egypt, militarily hampers its movements in Sinai, and politically sidelines it from the Palestinian issue.
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Even domestically within Egypt, the consequences are disastrous. The Strait of Tiran is a lifeline for tourism and trade in southern Sinai. Any threat to it directly hits Nuweiba Port, and could choke tourism investments and undermine maritime trade, deepening Egypt's economic crisis.
In this context, Tiran and Sanafir are not just neglected islands; they are the gateway to Sinai's security and the key to Israel's dominance over the Red Sea. Losing them, or having them used against Egypt's interests, could suffocate the south and isolate it strategically, keeping Egypt in a perpetual defensive posture.
I vividly remember the day I went to the library in Berlin, researching the islands' history through maps and documents. I met the head of the library's maps department, an elderly man on the verge of retirement, who sat with me for a long time to discuss the islands.
He told me something I'll never forget: 'Anyone who doesn't understand the geography of Tiran and Sanafir doesn't understand how this region is controlled.'
Today, that statement is clearer than ever. We are witnessing a scenario where geography intersects with geopolitics, Israel's hegemony is fully manifested by land and sea, and the roles of Egypt, Sudan and Yemen are shrinking amid a growing Iranian-Turkish competition on an ever-more complex chessboard.
This is all happening under the watchful eyes of Washington and Tel Aviv, with calculated Gulf approval.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.