April 25, 1982
Israel completes the three-year process of withdrawing from the Sinai Peninsula under the terms of its 1979 treaty with Egypt. The formal handover to Egypt comes two days after the Israeli government ignores strong domestic opposition to evacuate and raze Yamit, the final Israeli settlement in the strategic and minerally rich peninsula.
The Sinai withdrawal is the final fulfilment of the promises made by Israel in the treaty. In return, Egypt acknowledges Israel’s right to exist and promises to live peacefully as neighbors.
The treaty was signed March 26, 1979, six months after the countries reached the Camp David Accords through the mediation of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, are signed on the White House lawn on September 17, 1978. Based on U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the accords consist of two parts. The first focuses on Egyptian-Israeli relations, and the second addresses the methods and procedures to establish Palestinian Arab political expression through some form of autonomy.
A major pillar of the accords and the peace treaty is the return of Sinai, which Israel captured during the June 1967 war.
Carter’s efforts to initiate Palestinian autonomy were not successful. But the land-for-peace formula involving Sinai lays out an effective series of steps to dismantle Israeli settlements and infrastructure and return the peninsula to Egypt.
