Egyptian security forces operating in the Sinai Peninsula have seized several caches of weapons and explosives this week, which officials believe were destined for use against both Israel and Egypt. Officials told the Ma’an News Agency that among the cache contained anti-aircraft shells, grenades, and anti-tank mines intended for the bordering Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Also found were arms of the same kind used in attacks on the Egyptian army, including in an August 2012 attack that killed 16 Egyptian troops.

The Egyptian army is struggling to impose order on the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula. The security campaigns have strained relations between the army and Hamas, which maintains and regulates the labyrinth of tunnels that run between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. The tunnels enable the movement of weapons and jihadis between the two territories. When the army tried to flood the tunnels earlier this year, Hamas responded by lashing out in the media, triggering a kind of media cold war between the group and the Egyptian military.

Those tensions, meanwhile, have reverberated domestically and introduced strain between the Muslim Brotherhood – to which the current government is linked, and which shares close ties with Hamas – and the army. Israeli delegations have been regularly traveling to Egypt to coordinate security campaigns with their counterparts.