Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty

The challenge

Egypt wanted all of Sinai back, which Israel had captured in 1967. Israel wanted the largest and strongest Arab state out of the cycle of war. The Camp David Accords set the principle; it took another six months to turn it into a treaty.

The road there

1. 17 September 1978The Camp David Accords are signed.
2. March 1979Carter travels to Israel and Egypt; the last disputes are resolved, including in talks between US Secretary of State Vance and Foreign Minister Dayan¹.
3. 22 March 1979The Knesset approves the treaty: 95 in favour, 18 against, 2 abstentions².
4. 26 March 1979The treaty is signed in Washington³.
5. 26 February 1980The first ambassadors are exchanged⁴.
6. 6 October 1981Sadat is assassinated in Cairo⁵.
7. 25 April 1982Israel completes its withdrawal and Sinai returns to Egyptian sovereignty⁶.
8. 15 March 1989Taba is handed to Egypt after an arbitration ruling⁷.

The people

Led

Anwar Sadat · Menachem Begin

Negotiated

Moshe Dayan

Signed

Anwar Sadat · Menachem Begin

Mediated

Jimmy Carter · Cyrus Vance

Witnessed

Jimmy Carter

What was agreed

• The state of war ends, and peace is established when the instruments of ratification are exchanged⁸.
• Israel withdraws all its forces and civilians from Sinai within three years, and in a first stage – within nine months – to the El-Arish–Ras Muhammad line⁸.
• The permanent boundary is the international boundary between Egypt and Mandatory Palestine, without prejudice to the issue of the status of the Gaza Strip⁸.
• Full recognition and diplomatic, economic and cultural relations⁸.
• Limited-force zones on both sides of the border, and an international force and observers⁸.
• Free passage for Israeli ships through the Suez Canal; the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba are international waterways⁸.
• In case of conflict, the obligations under the treaty are binding and prevail over the parties' other obligations⁸.

Read the document

The geography

The hard decisions

• Israel gave up all of Sinai, including airfields⁹ and 14 settlements, the largest of them Yamit¹⁰. In the Knesset, 18 members voted against².
• The Arab League suspended Egypt's membership and moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis; Egypt was readmitted in 1989¹¹.
• On 6 October 1981 Sadat was assassinated at a military parade in Cairo by members of an Egyptian Islamist jihad cell led by Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambouli, belonging to the al-Jihad organisation (Egyptian Islamic Jihad)⁵. The documented motives were several: the failure to apply Islamic law, a law expanding women's rights, the Jerusalem visit and the Camp David Accords; a wave of arrests of about 1,500 opponents in September 1981 sped up the plot⁵. Peace with Israel was one motive, not the only one. Another source links the assassins to a different group, Takfir wal-Hijra, and counts ten other people killed in the attack¹².
• His successor, Hosni Mubarak, kept the treaty.

Where accounts differ

According to Egypt

Israel's military presence in the Philadelphi corridor, along the Gaza–Egypt border, violates the treaty's security annex¹³.

According to Israel

The deployment of Egyptian forces in Sinai near the border exceeds what the treaty allows and threatens its security¹³.

What changed in real life

• No war has broken out between Israel and Egypt since 1973.
• On 14 December 2004 the Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZ) protocol was signed: Egyptian goods with an Israeli component enter the United States duty-free¹⁷.
• Since January 2020 Israel has exported natural gas to Egypt¹⁸. In August 2025 a deal worth about 35 billion dollars, running to 2040, was signed¹⁹, and Israel's government approved the export on 17 December 2025²⁰. According to the Carnegie Endowment, Israeli gas supplies about 15 to 20 percent of Egypt's daily consumption¹³.

What remains open

• Since the war in Gaza, relations have been very tense. Egypt treats any move of Gaza's residents into Sinai as a red line²¹, and repeated this in September 2026²².
• On 7 October 2026 an Israeli minister's remarks about Sinai drew sharp responses in the Egyptian media²³.

Photos, videos and quotes

▶Watch here

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Related archive photograph, not a video frame · Jimmy Carter Library / CIA archival release

26 March 1979 Iconic moment

Peace 1979

Menachem Begin's speech at the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt, the White House, 26 March 1979 – from the Begin Heritage Center channel (as the Center's website describes the video)

At the ceremony sealing the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state, Begin declared an end to war, bloodshed and bereavement. Under the treaty Israel withdrew from all of Sinai, and the peace with Egypt has held ever since.

Begin Center · Opens on the source site in a new tab

▶Watch here

Click to load the YouTube player, or open the source.

Related archive photograph, not a video frame · Jimmy Carter Library / CIA archival release

26 March 1979 Iconic momentNot from an official or archival channel

Peace Treaty Signed - 1979 | Today In History | 26 Mar 17

Signing of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, Washington, 26 March 1979 – short archive clip

AP Archive · Opens on the source site in a new tab

Local photographs with credits and links to sources and licences. Where a usable image was unavailable, an archive link remains.

26 March 1979

Sadat, Carter and Begin at the peace treaty signing, 26 March 1979

Jimmy Carter Library / CIA archival release

Licence

Public domain — U.S. government photograph; source file contains provenance

See the photo in the archive