Egypt's Parliament Clears Sisi to Send Forces to Defend Saudi Arabia From Iran-Backed Houthis

Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, just cleared the way to go to war for Saudi Arabia. On Monday, Egypt's House of Representatives voted to authorize President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to send military support to defend the kingdom against Yemen's Houthis, the Iran-backed militia that has spent October firing missiles and drones at Saudi airports, oil sites and, Riyadh says, the skies near Mecca and Medina.

It's the clearest sign yet that the fight Iran's proxies started is pulling America's Arab partners in on the Saudi side. And it comes as President Trump weighs whether to make a deal with Iran or, as he put it on Fox News on Sunday, "finish them off."

What Egypt's parliament approved

The chamber's own statement says lawmakers met in secret sessions on Oct. 18, 19 and 26 at Sisi's request. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Hany Hanna and Maj. Gen. Khaled Shahdy, an assistant defense minister, sat in. The debate ended with the House approving, "by a two-thirds majority of its members," a mandate for the president "to take the necessary measures to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, following coordination between the two brotherly countries, to defend its territory, sovereignty and holy sites against any external aggression." (Translation from Arabic by unga.news.) The statement says Egypt's National Defense Council signed off on Oct. 18.

That two-thirds bar isn't for show. Article 152 of Egypt's constitution says the president can't send troops on combat missions outside the country without first consulting the National Defense Council and winning a two-thirds vote of the House. Both steps are now done. Two lawmakers told BBC Arabic, on condition they not be named, that members voted by standing and that it passed almost unanimously, with the roughly 12-member Egyptian Social Democratic Party bloc abstaining and "a limited number" voting no.

Mostafa Bakry, a veteran pro-government lawmaker, posted the statement and spelled out the politics on X: the House authorized Sisi to send forces to Saudi Arabia "if the matter requires it and after coordination between the two countries." He added: "Egypt will not abandon its brothers." In another post he wrote that "Egyptian-Saudi security is one and shared, and any harm to Saudi security is harm to Egypt's security."

Defense, not invasion

Cairo is drawing a line. Sisi said last Wednesday that any Egyptian military role would be limited to protecting Saudi territory and borders, not attacking Yemen, according to Reuters. That same day, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and intelligence chief Hassan Rashad flew to Riyadh to hand Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a letter from Sisi. A regional official told the Associated Press that Egypt won't provide ground troops. The mandate itself names no number of forces and no mission, and Saudi Arabia still has to ask.

Even so, this is big for Egypt. Cairo sent a large ground force abroad in the 1991 Gulf War, when it joined the U.S.-led coalition that drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, and hasn't done anything like that since. In the Saudi-led Yemen campaign that began in 2015, Egypt mostly helped with warships guarding the sea lanes.

The war on Saudi Arabia

The fight between the Saudis and the Houthis, who seized Yemen's capital in 2014, flared again in July as the wider war with Iran spread. In October it turned into a sustained air campaign against the kingdom. An Oct. 10 strike on Riyadh's airport killed 13 people, according to an AFP tally that counts 22 people killed in attacks on Saudi airports this month. On Oct. 24, Saudi Arabia said it shot down Houthi missiles near Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holiest cities. The Houthis called that a lie. Egypt's Al-Azhar, the most prominent seat of Sunni Islamic learning, condemned the attacks on the holy cities and renewed that condemnation Monday.

The shooting didn't stop for Egypt's vote. On Monday, Saudi coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said Saudi air defenses destroyed a ballistic missile fired at Riyadh, and that coalition strikes in Yemen hit five tunnels used to store ballistic missiles, four launchers and a missile depot. The coalition later said it downed three more drones over the Riyadh region and the south. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed a "precise hit" on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and promised video of drone strikes on Saudi troops along the border in Najran, Jizan and Asir.

Washington is already reacting. Last week the State Department ordered some U.S. embassy staff and their families out of Saudi Arabia as the attacks escalated.

Why Egypt cares

Egypt's stake isn't just brotherhood. The Houthis' attacks on Red Sea shipping, which began in late 2023, have already gutted one of Egypt's biggest sources of hard currency. Think of the Suez Canal as a toll road: when drivers start taking a detour around a whole continent, the toll booth goes quiet. The canal brought in a record $10.25 billion in 2023 and just $3.99 billion in 2024, according to the Suez Canal Authority, as ship traffic fell by about half. Houthi gains around the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the narrow southern gate to the Red Sea, threaten that route again.

What happens next

The ball is in Riyadh's court. Saudi Arabia already has a mutual defense pact, signed in August in Mecca, with Pakistan and Turkey. Egypt isn't a member, though Abdelatty said this month that joining is "under serious consideration." Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry on Monday stressed the "pivotal role" of the Mecca pact countries in the region's security, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The Houthis are now feuding with Al-Azhar, too. Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb renewed his condemnation of the attacks near Mecca and Medina on Monday, and according to Bakry, a Houthi body of religious scholars demanded he take his statement back. Bakry called that demand beyond all decency and said the imam's statement "speaks for every Muslim man and woman." When Iran's militia has the Arab world's most populous nation voting to defend Saudi Arabia, and its top Sunni authority condemning missiles aimed toward Mecca, Tehran's proxy war is turning its neighbors into one camp, against it.

The bottom line: Sisi now has a blank check from parliament to defend Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis only have to ask. Every Houthi missile at Riyadh makes that call more likely.