Egypt’s hopeful presidential candidates have made the first televised presidential debate in Egypt’s history strongly criticizing Israel and calling it as an enemy to the Egyptian nation

Egypt’s hopeful presidential candidates have made the first televised presidential debate in Egypt’s history strongly criticizing Israel and calling it as an enemy to the Egyptian nation.

The two front-runners in Egypt's presidential election were Amr Moussa, a former foreign minister and Arab League chief, and Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh. The debate, which was aired on two private Egyptian television channels, ONTV and Dream, lasted for nearly four hours late into the night on Thursday.

The two traded accusations against each other but both agreed the country's 1979 “peace treaty” with the Israeli occupation had to be revised though not annulled.

"Israel is an enemy, an entity established on occupying the land and threatening our security,” former leading member of Muslim Brotherhood Abul Fotouh said. "An entity that has 200 nuclear warheads, has a vast amount of reinforcements on the pretext of security, an entity that stands against international resolutions and rejects the return of the Palestinian people's rights," he was quoted as saying by AP.

Moussa also expressed similar views against the Zionist entity. "Most of our people consider it [Israel] an enemy, most of our people don't agree with it and don't trust the peace with it. This is true," Moussa said.

Egyptian polls have suggested that Moussa and Abul Fotouh are the leading contenders in the May 23-24 polls.