Boiling point nears in Gaza - Egypt - Al-Ahram Weekly

Al-Ahram Weekly

3 days ago

The fast deterioration of the situation in Gaza is only one of many pressing issues that Cairo is currently bracing for.
With the increasing level of bloodshed in Gaza, especially during aid distribution operations, Cairo this week intensified consultations both at the international and regional levels in a bid to avert what is feared to be a catastrophic humanitarian situation on its eastern border.
Developments in Gaza were a top issue for presidential consultations this week. On Monday, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi spoke with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and the issue was also top on the agenda of Al-Sisi's talks with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei said that Araghchi's visit to Cairo aimed to discuss bilateral relations and consult on the latest developments in the region, especially in occupied Palestine, as well as international developments.
Head of the Iranian Interests Section in Egypt Mohammad Hossein Soltanifard explained that Araghchi's visit was a continuation of the regional tours he has been making in recent weeks, including to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.
According to a statement issued by the State Information Service (SIS), Araghchi's talks in Cairo also covered the situation in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, where the Houthis are still launching attacks from Yemen on vessels heading to and from Israel.
Iran is a close ally of Hamas, and both Cairo and Doha, key mediators in the Gaza ceasefire, have been demanding that Tehran encourage Hamas to be pragmatic in its approach to the ceasefire parameters.
In a joint statement issued earlier in the week, Egypt and Qatar said they would be working hard to help facilitate the ceasefire deal put forward by US Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff. Hamas has demanded amendments to the deal, especially US guarantees of the Israeli commitment to honour the ceasefire for the duration agreed upon.
A source close to the Hamas negotiating team said that the Islamic resistance movement had not closed the door on the ceasefire deal despite 'a very unfair draft'. However, he added that there was little reason to expect that Witkoff would accommodate the amendments that Hamas has requested.
According to informed government sources this week, the issue has gone beyond whether there will be a ceasefire and whether it will be long or short. The situation, the sources said, is now one of 'waiting for disaster'.
'We could have a ceasefire, but this does not mean that we are set to see an end to this [Israeli] war [on Gaza] anytime soon. In fact, it is the assessment, at least here, that the worst phase is yet to come,' one source said.
He explained that with the 'way things are unfolding on the ground with the Israeli military operation,' it seems that Israel is pushing as many Gazans as possible next to the border with Egypt, which is keeping a close watch on the situation and is escalating its state of 'readiness' in anticipation of the worst.
For this and other informed sources who have spoken since the beginning of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, the Israeli scheme to displace the Palestinians out of Gaza is unchanged. Egypt, the same sources have been saying, will not settle for any forced entry of Palestinian civilians into its territory.
Egypt has put this message across to several capitals concerned both within and outside the region regarding its opposition to any such imposed scenarios.
Sources close to Hamas say they will do everything possible to avert a displacement scenario and will refuse all attempts to force the surviving leaders of Hamas out of Gaza.
However, according to a source who has been involved in the humanitarian relief in Gaza, this will be 'easier said than done', especially with the level of escalation that Israel has been opting for.
On Sunday, the international NGO Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said that Israel is using a widely criticised humanitarian aid scheme for Gaza to push its ethnic-cleansing agenda.
The food distribution plan by the highly controversial Gaza Humanitarian Fund has been chaotic and deadly for Palestinians who have been shot dead by the Israeli military in Gaza.
UN agencies and major aid organisations declined to take part in the system, stating that it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel, the occupying power, to control who receives aid and forcing people to relocate to designated distribution sites, further risking mass displacement across the territory.
'The claim that this unprincipled, failing mechanism is necessary to prevent the diversion of aid is false,' MSF stated on its website.
'This initiative seems to be a cynical ploy to feign compliance with international humanitarian law,' the group said. 'In practice, it uses aid as a tool to forcibly displace people as part of what appears to be a broader strategy to ethnically-cleanse the Gaza Strip and to justify the continuation of a war waged without limits.'
An Egyptian diplomat who spoke this week said that Israel's decision to block a visit by a delegation of Arab foreign ministers to the West Bank, where Israel has also been escalating its operations against the Palestinians, is a clear indication of where it is heading.
Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty criticised the Israeli decision to deny the Arab ministerial delegation to the West Bank access to the area. He said that Israel's behaviour demonstrated its stubbornness in dealing with Arab and international efforts to de-escalate the situation and find a solution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 'Netanyahu is under no pressure to change course, not from inside Israel, not from the US or Europe, and certainly not from anyone else,' he said, adding that the 'boiling point' could be just around the corner.
Meanwhile, sources say that Egypt's worry over its eastern border is not the only one. They argue that Egyptian security bodies are also keeping a close watch on the situation on the southern and western borders with Sudan and Libya.
Egypt, a source said, is keen to enhance the chances of stability in Sudan, which have allowed for the voluntary return of a good number of Sudanese who had come to Egypt on the eruption of the war between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Meanwhile, Egypt hosted a three-way meeting on Libya this week where Abdelatty consulted with his counterparts from Algeria, Ahmed Attaf, and Tunisia, Mahmoud Al-Nafti, on possible ideas to endorse stability in Libya.
An informed source said that the concern that Egypt has was not just about recent signs of a possible re-eruption of violence in the west of Libya but also about the signs of 'incidents' in the east of the country right on the border with Egypt that reveal possible security issues.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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