Israeli defense minister acknowledges friction with Egypt, hopes it will “blow over”: “I definitely think there have been days of tensions” since the Egypt-brokered ceasefire in Gaza came into effect earlier this month, Haaretz quotes Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz as saying in a radio interview yesterday. “Relations between friends have ups and downs … without going into some specific incident or another, we will know how to stabilize the relations. We don’t need to take every crisis and turn it into the single most important thing. I hope it will blow over in the next few days.”

What’s the beef? Israeli media reported on Sunday that the head of Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet had traveled to Egypt to defuse anger in Cairo over Israel’s killing of three Palestinians in Nablus. The incident came a few days after the ceasefire came into effect when President Abdel Fattah El Sisi reportedly asked Israeli PM Yair Lapid to rein in the military’s activities in the West Bank. Haaretz described Egypt’s reaction to the killings as “furious” and led to spymaster Abbas Kamel canceling a planned trip to Israel.