Egypt on Thursday called a major gas deal with Israel “purely commercial without political dimensions.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a $35-billion natural gas deal with Egypt on Wednesday, raising controversy over the Egyptian stance regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump signed the Gaza ceasefire deal in an October ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh which Netanyahu did not attend. The U.S. is planning a deployment of international forces to monitor Gaza, with possible participation from Arab and Muslim countries, while Egypt has not confirmed whether it will participate.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that he has approved the largest natural gas export agreement in Israel’s history, a record-setting deal worth about NIS 112 billion ($34.7 billion) to supply Egypt with gas from Israel’s offshore fields over the coming years.

In 1956, Britain, France, and Israel struck Egypt after Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, seeking to preserve Western leverage and blunt his regional ambitions. -A secret plan sent Israel into Sinai,

Egypt told US interlocutors in conversations this week that Washington should not underestimate Hamas’s “military capabilities that still exist within the Gaza Strip despite t