January 26, 1980

Egypt–Israel peace treaty

Egypt–Israel normalization measures take effect

The borders, telephones and mail opened before the ambassadors arrived. That ceremonial exchange came exactly one month later.

26 January 1980

Egypt and Israel put major normalization measures into operation on 26 January 1980, opening land, sea and air links and initiating direct telephone and postal connections.

Regular civilian flights between Tel Aviv and Cairo were scheduled to begin that day, under arrangements Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin had settled at their Aswan summit earlier in the month.

Triggered by a withdrawal, not a ceremony

Israel had completed the peace treaty’s interim Sinai withdrawal the previous day, transferring about 5,500 square miles of territory and its facilities to Egypt.

The treaty made that completion the trigger: diplomatic and consular relations and an ambassadorial exchange were required upon the withdrawal.

Three dates, three different steps

Resident ambassadors were not exchanged on 26 January. Saad Mortada took up his post in Israel and Eliahu Ben-Elissar his in Cairo a month later, on 26 February.

A U.S. diplomatic report instead dates the establishment of “normal and friendly relations” to 25 January, when the withdrawal finished. The three dates describe successive legal and practical steps rather than competing claims.

None of them ended the state of war. That happened when the treaty entered into force through the exchange of ratifications on 25 April 1979.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 7 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The listed January 26 date is defensible for the practical start of normalization and is widely used for the establishment of full diplomatic relations.
A U.S. diplomatic report dates the establishment of 'normal and friendly relations' to January 25, when the interim withdrawal was completed.
Some references instead use February 26, when ambassadors were formally exchanged. The three dates describe successive legal and practical steps, not necessarily contradictory events.