A parliamentary session expected to authorise Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia has been postponed.

Debates that began after the Sisi administration declared its readiness to provide military backing to Riyadh were prolonged due to lawmakers’ requests to take the floor and questions regarding the details of the plan.

Speaking to Reuters, two parliamentarians reported that discussions starting on Sunday, 18 October, would continue on Monday. Personally calling for the extraordinary sitting, Sisi intends to contribute to the defence of the allied country should Saudi Arabia make a request.

Requests to speak reach three hundred in closed session

Lawmaker Ibrahim Khulaif and parliament member Maha Abdel Nasser told AFP that the session was extended to allow all deputies to voice their views. Both parliamentarians stated that concrete details regarding the operational format and the content of the military assistance Egypt would provide have not yet been addressed.

According to information cited by the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper from parliamentary sources, around 300 parliamentarians asked to speak during the closed-door session to learn the specifics of the military measure and to share their assessments.

Parliament Speaker Hesham Badawi announced that three or more sessions would be held to provide comprehensive explanations and to hear every deputy waiting to speak. According to the report, three lawmakers expressed reservations about the move, arguing that diplomatic channels should be pursued instead of military action.

Defence Council approves move, parliamentary mandate awaited

Prior to the discussions in parliament, the National Defence Council met under Sisi’s chairmanship and approved the provision of “all necessary and possible support” to safeguard Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity, security, and Islam’s holy sites. This decision does not constitute an immediate troop deployment, as parliamentary authorization is required to complete the legal process.

Lawmaker Mostafa Bakry reported that the council had approved the dispatch of troops to Saudi Arabia as well as the defensive mission these units would execute.

Stressing that Saudi Arabia is regarded as an integral part of Egyptian national security, Bakry assessed that “any threat to its security and stability is a threat to us.”

President Sisi adopted a similar line in a statement on Saturday, saying: “Egypt is ready to take whatever measures Saudi Arabia may request to defend its security and sovereignty.”

Regional tensions and claims of a defence pact

The military preparations in Cairo coincide with renewed activity along the front lines in Yemen and circulating claims that the Mecca Defence Pact among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye has been activated.

The Islamabad administration rejected claims that Pakistani warplanes had targeted Yemen; however, thousands of Pakistani soldiers are stationed on Saudi territory. Among the claims, it is also alleged that Türkiye has dispatched a significant amount of equipment and personnel for use in operations in Yemen.

The Riyadh government has maintained military operations and a blockade against Yemen for more than a decade. Following an intensification of Saudi air operations in July, the Yemeni Armed Forces escalated their retaliatory missile and drone strikes against Saudi bases, airports, and energy infrastructure.

Yemeni forces down Saudi attack helicopter

The Ansarullah-led Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Sunday that they had downed an AH-6i Saudi attack helicopter near the Najran region using a domestically produced surface-to-air missile, releasing video footage of the incident.

The Saudi-led military coalition confirmed that all crew members aboard the helicopter, which was targeted on grounds of conducting “hostile activity”, had died.

Having previously struck the western Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, Saudi warplanes have carried out more than 2,500 strikes since July, according to figures shared by Yemeni military officials.

Dozens of civilians have been killed in these operations, while the Yemeni Armed Forces continue to target Saudi Arabia’s strategic energy fields and transport hubs using loitering munitions and missiles.

Successful strikes carried out by the Yemeni resistance against King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh have intensified scrutiny over air defence systems.

Stephen Bryen, a former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defence and a prominent expert in security strategy and technology, pointed out in an analysis published on his personal Substack account that it is becoming increasingly evident that even the best existing air defence systems fail to shield critical assets from damage or destruction.

Highlighting that the Yemeni operation employed a coordinated combination of loitering munitions, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, the expert noted that the launch sequence unfolded in the order of drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

The raid lasted approximately 45 minutes. The most severe destruction occurred at gates 401 to 403, which were struck initially by Quds cruise missiles, each carrying a payload of 150 kg.

According to Bryen, the situation was further compounded when debris from Patriot interceptors crashed into the terminals, causing fires and spreading shrapnel.

Noting that no air raid sirens were sounded and no early warning of the strike was issued, the author stressed that the airport lacked a civil defence system, shelters, or publicized evacuation procedures.

Arguing it was clear that Ansar Allah “aimed to cause mass casualties in order to punish Saudi Arabia for its support of government forces in Yemen”, the author stated that “the Houthi militia had repeatedly issued public warnings regarding their intentions” and had made plain their goal of shutting down the Riyadh airport, even if it was not their sole target.

Bryen continued:

“Despite modern radars and airborne early warning systems, the launches of the unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles went undetected. Saudi Arabia possesses five E-3A AWACS aircraft, two Saab 2000 Erieye AWACS aircraft equipped with modern AESA radars (the E-3A radar being an older pulse-Doppler system), and a series of other dedicated tactical reconnaissance platforms (RE-3A, RE-3B). These systems and coastal radar installations are integrated into a centralized defence network linked to air defence assets such as Patriot, THAAD, and up to 10 batteries of the Korean-made KM-SAM Block-II (Cheongung-II) used for lower-tier air defence against short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), cruise missiles, aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).”

Pointing out that there are no reports indicating other countries, particularly the US and Israel, detected the Yemeni launches or alerted Saudi Arabia even if they did, the US expert recalled that drone and cruise missile launches are “easily concealed” and wrote that detecting such operations requires high-quality intelligence, typically human intelligence.

“The fact that Saudi Arabia established an initiative named the ‘Mecca Joint Defence Agreement’ … with Pakistan and Türkiye, excluding the US and frustrating Washington’s drive to expand the Abraham Accords to the Kingdom, may have played a role in dampening US interest in assisting the Kingdom with the Houthis and the Yemen issue,” Bryen claimed, arguing that it remains uncertain whether Washington will intervene now.

Emphasising that the Ansar Allah operation was an intensive attack employing new or upgraded technology “originating from Iran and perhaps developed with the support of Russia and China”, the author said:

“The suicide unmanned aerial vehicle used by the Houthis was the Samad-3. The Samad-3 is an extended-range loitering munition powered by a two-stroke, twin-cylinder piston engine (typically identified as a 3W110i B2 or DLE 170 class model) driving a rear-mounted pusher propeller. During long-range operations, such as extended flights exceeding 1,500 to 2,600 km, it generally flies at a lower average cruising speed of 148 to 185 km/h (80 to 100 knots or roughly 92 to 115 mph) to conserve fuel. Western experts do not consider the Samad-3 to be highly accurate, even though the latest variants have been enhanced with more jam-resistant satellite links. Between 30 and 40 Samad drones were deployed in the successive strikes on King Khalid Airport.”

He noted that the Quds cruise missile was more lethal, carried a larger warhead, featured advanced electronics, and was powered by a copy of the commercial Czech PBS TJ100 turbojet engine, pointing out that this copy was manufactured in Iran.

Underlining that the Quds-2 utilizes satellite-assisted navigation (GPS/GNSS) and inertial navigation systems (INS), Bryen said: “As a low-flying cruise missile, it can use terrain masking to evade standard radar coverage and air defence systems. The successful strikes by Quds cruise missiles on Terminals 3 and 4 demonstrate that it possesses effective guidance and anti-jamming electronic systems.”

Saudi officials had asserted that they intercepted a portion of the Burkan ballistic missiles using Patriot systems. According to Bryen, the Burkan missiles were not the elements that inflicted the primary damage on the airport.

Regarding the Burkan ballistic missiles, the author wrote:

“The Burkan is a modernized ballistic missile. Once the boost phase is completed following launch, the warhead separates from the missile body. The high-speed warhead alone is difficult for radar to detect. The Burkan-2H and Burkan-3 feature a separable, triconic (‘baby-bottle’ shaped) warhead inherited from Iran’s Qiam-1 and Shahab-3 designs. The separated warhead lacks active control surfaces, such as grid fins or thrusters, to execute evasive manoeuvres or terminal guidance corrections against interceptors like the MIM-104 Patriot. Nevertheless, the missile body travels along the same trajectory as the warhead, creating discrimination and targeting challenges for systems such as the Patriot.”

The author finds it “striking” that the damage inflicted by the Ansar Allah strike on King Khalid International Airport is roughly equivalent to the Iranian strikes against a series of US and Israeli bases that began with the “Martyr Soleimani” operation hitting Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq in 2020.

According to Bryen, the takeaway from all this points to “grave intelligence shortcomings, inadequate integration of sensors, including radars.”

Recalling that several of these sensors had been targeted and destroyed by Iran, the author listed those targets: the half-billion-dollar THAAD radar (AN-TPY-2) stationed at Muwaffaq Salti in March 2026, the AN/FPS-132 Block 5 upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR) located near Al Khor in northern Qatar supporting US and Qatari ballistic missile tracking efforts, other early warning radars in the UAE, and air defence systems functioning well enough to prevent significant damage.

The author concluded his article by arguing that air defence systems and American base planning must be overhauled entirely:

“The US has focused on refining legacy systems like the Patriot and has introduced some interim systems like NASAMS, but has otherwise neglected developing new air defence solutions. Systems such as THAAD and the Navy’s SM-3 could also play a role, but their utility has remained limited. THAAD was not utilized in the Riyadh strike.

If the Houthi militia and the Iranians can penetrate the air defence networks of the US and its allies, the entire system will require a serious overhaul. Withdrawing from Middle Eastern bases is not a genuine solution; it is merely a short-term temporary fix. Even being pushed out of the United Kingdom should serve as a warning that base defences urgently need to be rethought.”

Avi Gil, the former military secretary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has claimed that attempts were made within the Prime Minister’s Office to alter the timestamps of official call logs from the morning of 7 October 2023.

Following these disclosures, the Israeli opposition petitioned Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, demanding the opening of a criminal investigation into Netanyahu and his staff.

Gil, who served as military secretary at the time of the attack, said in an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper and Channel 12 television that Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, attempted to alter the timing of a critical conversation held that morning.

Arguing that the initiative formed part of a “criminal pattern of behaviour”, Gil stated that he had remained silent until now in anticipation of a state commission of inquiry, but noted that what had been conveyed to the public did not reflect the truth.

Braverman is known to have been questioned and investigated by police over fraud and forgery allegations on suspicion of illegally tampering with official protocols.

Claim that official call time was shifted back

Gil recounted that on the morning of 7 October 2023, he received a call from the office of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar at 06:12, and during a conversation with Bar over a secure line at 06:17, he was informed that SIM cards had been activated in Gaza and that Hamas operatives had moved underground.

Stating that he first telephoned Netanyahu at 06:29 to wake him, Gil noted that he informed the Prime Minister that Hamas had launched a surprise attack and that he was continuing to gather information.

Gil stated that during a second telephone call at 06:40, he conveyed to Netanyahu the message: “We are at war.”

The former military secretary said that months later, in January, a stenographer approached him and disclosed that Braverman had asked her to alter the time of the second conversation in the official records from 06:40 to 06:29.

Gil noted that this step may have been intended to create the impression that Netanyahu had been issuing instructions from the very first moment of the attack, or to lay the groundwork for the thesis that intelligence had been withheld from the Prime Minister by fostering the perception that the information conveyed in the second call was already known during the first.

Stating that he noticed Netanyahu’s team collecting documents in an unusual manner two weeks after the events began, Gil said that, suspecting minutes were being falsified, he approached Attorney General Baharav-Miara and requested clarification of the rules. Gil pointed out that any prospective commission of inquiry should not content itself with written records alone and must examine the original audio recordings.

Responding to a question regarding allegations that Egypt had issued a warning prior to the attack, Gil stated that he had no knowledge of such a message, but noted that an Egyptian intelligence aircraft had landed in Israel in late September and remained for more than an hour.

Remarking that no aircraft arrives without reason, Gil suggested that the officials who met the delegation or received the message were continuing to conceal it.

Gil also asserted that the security documentation Netanyahu submitted to the state comptroller was incomplete, noting that the document did not reflect the whole truth.

Likud rejects claims: “Gil did not wake PM in time”

The ruling Likud Party rejected the allegations, stating that the claims were politically motivated propaganda targeting Netanyahu and the party.

In a post on his social media account, Netanyahu argued that the opposition’s campaign of lies could not alter the truth.

Likud’s statement alleged that Gil was attempting to cover up his own negligence, claiming that despite an alert message received from the military secretariat’s intelligence officer at 03:55 on the morning of 7 October, Gil took no action and failed to wake the Prime Minister in time.

The party maintained that had Netanyahu been informed in time, developments would have unfolded differently.

Opposition levels treason accusations

Opposition parties, meanwhile, called for legal steps against Netanyahu and his team to be accelerated following the statements.

The Yashar Party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, cited Ronen Bergman’s investigation in Yedioth Ahronoth alongside Gil’s statements to call on the Attorney General to open a criminal probe. The party accused Netanyahu of concealing critical assessments regarding the strengthening of Hamas and its ties to the Iranian axis from the state comptroller.

Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman said Attorney General Baharav-Miara must immediately launch an investigation into Netanyahu and his aides on allegations of treason and conspiracy.

Liberman also called on the Chief of the General Staff to block attempts to use the military for political ends.

The Democrats Party leader, Yair Golan, described Gil’s testimony as historic, noting that responsibility for the events in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage could not be concealed.

Golan demanded that all original audio recordings and documents within the Prime Minister’s Office be placed under immediate protective custody.

The leadership of the October 7 Council also stated that Gil’s remarks refuted the government’s arguments that it was unaware of the situation prior to the attack.