Egyptian parliament members condemned President Hosni Mubarak for going through with a deal to export natural gas to Israel. "This is a disaster that must be stopped," said Husan Ibrahim, a parliament member with ties to the radical muslim Islamic Brotherhood. He called on the government to halt the “insult” to Egypt that the sales represent, even though the government has said that the sale was being conducted by private companies, and that it could not intervene to cancel the contract.

The first of some 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas Egypt is to sell Israel over the next 20 years began flowing on Thursday. The Israel Electric Company has estimated that over 20 percent of the electricity to be produced in Israel in the next 10 years. will be based on Egyptian natural gas.