Republished: Palestinian displacement would be an injustice Egypt cannot participate in: President El-Sisi
President El-Sisi asserted that such displacement "can never be tolerated or allowed" due to its potential threat to Egypt's national security in his first public comment on Trump's recent proposals to relocate the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip,
During a press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto on Wednesday, the Egyptian president emphasized that Egypt is committed to working with US President Donald Trump to reach the desired peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution.
He reiterated that the constants of the historical Egyptian position on the Palestinian cause "can never be compromised in any way."
"There are historical rights that cannot be ignored," said the Egyptian president, adding "Egyptian, Arab, and international public opinion recognized a historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people for the past 70 years."
He highlighted how the world has witnessed the return of the Palestinian people to the Gaza Strip after enduring destruction for more than 15 months.
Egypt has consistently rejected all attempts to make life in Gaza untenable to force the Palestinians to leave, said El-Sisi.
In a controversial statement on Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced that he would propose relocating Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Jordan and Egypt.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he had told Jordan's King Abdullah II: "I'd love you to take on more because I'm looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it's a mess, it's a real mess." Trump added that he planned to present the same proposal to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday.
Immediately, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Cairo categorically rejects any displacement of Palestinians from their land, be it "short term" or "long term." Amman also declared its official rejection of the displacement of Palestinians to Jordan.
The Palestinian side and the Arab League condemned Trump's suggestions.
France and others in the international community declared opposition to the US president's proposals.
On Tuesday, the Axios News website reported that US President Trump allegedly told reporters on his plane Monday evening that he spoke with El-Sisi about transferring Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
A high-ranking official denied any recent phone conversation took place between El-Sisi and Trump, Al-Qahera News reported.
Speaking at the joint press conference in Cairo, the Kenyan president commended President El-Sisi's efforts in promoting peace and security in the region, praising Egypt's role in facilitating the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
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Al-Ahram Weekly
24 minutes ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
What to expect, and what not to, at the UN meeting on an Israel-Palestinian two-state solution - War on Gaza
The U.N. General Assembly is bringing high-level officials together this week to promote a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict that would place their peoples side by side, living in peace in independent nations. Israel and its close ally the United States are boycotting the two-day meeting, which starts Monday and will be co-chaired by the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. Israel's right-wing government opposes a two-state solution, and the United States has called the meeting 'counterproductive' to its efforts to end the war in Gaza. France and Saudi Arabia want the meeting to put a spotlight on the two-state solution, which they view as the only viable road map to peace, and to start addressing the steps to get there. The meeting was postponed from late June and downgraded from a four-day meeting of world leaders amid surging tensions in the Middle East, including Israel's 12-day war against Iran and the war in Gaza. 'It was necessary to restart a political process, the two-state solution process, that is today threatened, more threatened than it has ever been," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday on CBS News' 'Face the Nation." Here's what's useful to know about the upcoming gathering. Why a two-state solution? The idea of dividing the Holy Land goes back decades. When the British mandate over Palestine ended, the U.N. partition plan in 1947 envisioned dividing the territory into Jewish and Arab states. Israel accepted the plan, but upon Israel's declaration of independence the following year, its Arab neighbours declared war and the plan was never implemented. Under a 1949 armistice, Jordan held control over the West Bank and east Jerusalem and Egypt over Gaza. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those lands for a future independent state alongside Israel, and this idea of a two-state solution based on Israel's pre-1967 boundaries has been the basis of peace talks dating back to the 1990s. The two-state solution has wide international support. The logic behind it is that the population of Israel — along with east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — is divided equally between Jews and Palestinians. The establishment of an independent Palestine would leave Israel as a democratic country with a solid Jewish majority and grant the Palestinians their dream of self-determination. Why hold a conference now? France and Saudi Arabia have said they want to put a spotlight on the two-state solution as the only viable path to peace in the Middle East — and they want to see a road map with specific steps, first ending the war in Gaza. The co-chairs said in a document sent to U.N. members in May that the primary goal of the meeting is to identify actions by 'all relevant actors' to implement the two-state solution — and 'to urgently mobilize the necessary efforts and resources to achieve this aim, through concrete and time-bound commitments.' Saudi diplomat Manal Radwan, who led the country's delegation to the preparatory conference, said the meeting must 'chart a course for action, not reflection.' It must be 'anchored in a credible and irreversible political plan that addresses the root cause of the conflict and offers a real path to peace, dignity and mutual security,' she said. French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a broader movement toward a two-state solution in parallel with a recognition of Israel's right to defend itself. He announced late Thursday that France will recognize the state of Palestine officially at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in late September. About 145 countries have recognized the state of Palestine. But Macron's announcement, ahead of Monday's meeting and amid increasing global anger over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, makes France the most important Western power to do so. What is Israel's view? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds. Netanyahu's religious and nationalist base views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people, while Israeli Jews overwhelmingly consider Jerusalem their eternal capital. The city's eastern side is home to Judaism's holiest site, along with major Christian and Muslim holy places. Hard-line Israelis like Netanyahu believe the Palestinians don't want peace, citing the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and more recently the Hamas takeover of Gaza two years after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The Hamas takeover led to five wars, including the current and ongoing 21-month conflict. At the same time, Israel also opposes a one-state solution in which Jews could lose their majority. Netanyahu's preference seems to be the status quo, where Israel maintains overall control and Israelis have fuller rights than Palestinians, Israel deepens its control by expanding settlements, and the Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in pockets of the West Bank. Netanyahu condemned Macron's announcement of Palestinian recognition, saying it 'rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became." What is the Palestinian view? The Palestinians, who label the current arrangement 'apartheid,' accuse Israel of undermining repeated peace initiatives by deepening settlement construction in the West Bank and threatening annexation. That would harm the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state and their prospects for independence. Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the meeting will serve as preparation for a presidential summit expected in September. It will take place either in France or at the U.N. on the sidelines of the high-level meeting, U.N. diplomats said. Majdalani said the Palestinians have several goals, first a 'serious international political process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.' The Palestinians also want additional international recognition of their state by major countries including Britain. But expect that to happen in September, not at Monday's meeting, Majdalani said. And he said they want economic and financial support for the Palestinian Authority and international support for the reconstruction and recovery of the Gaza Strip. What will happen — and won't happen — at the meeting? All 193 U.N. member nations have been invited to attend the meeting and a French diplomat said about 40 ministers are expected. The United States and Israel are the only countries who are boycotting. The co-chairs have circulated an outcome document which could be adopted, and there could be some announcements of intentions to recognize a Palestinian state. But with Israel and the United States boycotting, there is no prospect of a breakthrough and the resumption of long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on an end to their conflict. Secretary-General António Guterres urged participants after the meeting was announced 'to keep the two-state solution alive.' And he said the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but 'materialize the conditions to make it happen.' Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Egypt Independent
an hour ago
- Egypt Independent
Israel is pausing operations in some parts of Gaza amid mounting horror over starvation. Will it be enough?
Israel has announced a daily 'tactical pause in military activity' in three areas of Gaza to enable more aid to reach people, amid growing international outrage over starvation in the territory. The Israeli military said the move would 'refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip.' The pause – which will also see the military open up corridors to facilitate aid delivery by the UN and other agencies – has come too late for dozens of Palestinians, with officials in Gaza reporting more deaths from malnutrition and among people desperately trying to get aid from convoys and distribution sites. And while the 'tactical pause' has been welcomed by UN agencies, there are questions over whether it will be enough after months in which far too little aid has reached Gaza. Here's what we know. How did we get here? There's long been a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In nearly two years of war that followed the Hamas attacks of October 7, the vast majority of the population of Gaza has been displaced multiple times. Tens of thousands are living in the streets or makeshift tents. As Gaza's infrastructure has been destroyed, access to water and power has become more difficult. Above all, the delivery of humanitarian food aid has been interrupted by the fighting, by difficulties in distributing aid and by restrictions ordered by the Israel military. Before the conflict, some 3,000 aid and commercial trucks would enter Gaza every week. Afterwards, numbers have plummeted. During a ceasefire at the beginning of this year, an average of several hundred trucks crossed daily. But that didn't last. The situation dramatically worsened in early March, when Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza in an effort to force Hamas to release the hostages it still held. Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, on Thursday. Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters Hunger was already widespread in Gaza and in the following months only grew. Bakeries and community kitchens closed, and prices in markets soared well beyond what most Gazans could afford. The United Nations warned that malnutrition was on the rise while nearly 6,000 aid trucks sat at the border. At the end of May the blockade was partially lifted, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – a private venture backed by the US and Israel – opened food distribution sites in southern Gaza. But the UN and others have criticized the GHF for violating basic humanitarian principles and for not being able to meet Gazans needs. GHF says it have distributed more than 90 million meals and blamed the UN for not coordinating with them. More than 1,000 people have been killed since May in desperate efforts to obtain food for their families, the UN says, almost all of them by the Israeli military. In May, the UN reported that the entire population was facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with 500,000 people facing starvation and more than 70,000 children set to require treatment for acute malnutrition. Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza spiked in July, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, with 63 deaths recorded. The global health body said the enclave's malnutrition rates reached 'alarming levels' this month. Over 5,000 children under five were admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition in just the first two weeks of July, the WHO said. To date, 133 people have died of malnutrition in Gaza since the conflict began, Palestinian health officials say, nearly 90 of them children. The majority of those deaths have occurred since March. Images of children dying of acute malnutrition have provoked global outrage, with the United Kingdom, France and Germany saying last week that the crisis was 'man-made and avoidable.' Two-year-old Yezen Abu Ful continues to lose weight as his condition worsens due to severe food shortages caused by the blockade and Israeli attacks, in Gaza City, Gaza on July 13. Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu/Getty Images What has Israel announced? The tactical pauses announced by the Israeli military cover three areas along the Mediterranean coast – Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah, and part of Gaza City – much of which were already supposed to be safe areas where the population could flee. The Israeli military published a map showing the areas where the pause would take effect but marked the rest of the Strip in red as a 'dangerous combat zone.' The pause began Sunday and will last ten hours, from 10am to 8pm local time. It will continue every day 'until further notice,' the military said. An important aspect of the Israeli announcement is that designated 'secure routes' will be established from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time, to enable UN and humanitarian organization convoys to safely distribute food and medicine. Hundreds of trucks have been looted in recent months, often by desperate people but sometimes by criminal gangs, and getting aid safely to warehouses in Gaza will be a major challenge. Israel carried out an airdrop of aid into Gaza on Saturday night, having previously announced it would permit foreign countries to carry out operations. On Sunday, Israel, Jordan, and the UAE airdropped 28 aid packages. But airdrops are regarded by aid agencies as expensive, inefficient and sometimes dangerous. UNICEF spokesman Joe English told CNN Sunday: 'We do airdrops in places around the world but it works where there are remote communities in big, wide open spaces. That's not the case in the Gaza Strip.' The IDF said it had also connected the power line from Israel to the desalination plant in Gaza, which would supply about 20,000 cubic meters of water per day – 10 times the current amount. Hamas decried the Israeli government's move as 'nothing more than a formal and deceptive step aimed at whitewashing its image before the world.' 'The occupation's plan for airdrops and control of so-called humanitarian corridors represents a blatant policy to manage starvation, not end it,' the militant group's statement read, 'It endangers the lives of civilians and humiliates their dignity, instead of providing them with protection and comprehensive relief.' An airplane drops humanitarian aid over Gaza as seen from northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters How quickly could things improve? Trucks have begun to roll towards Gaza, including convoys from Egypt and Jordan. But the volume of aid needed is huge. Thousands of trucks are ready to enter Gaza with food and medical supplies, but the main crossing point at Kerem Shalom is already choked with truckloads of aid waiting to be distributed. There are only two crossing points into Gaza – Kerem Shalom and Zikim in the north. Over 100 truckloads of aid were delivered to Gaza on Sunday, but 'sustained action' is needed to address the crisis, Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said. UN agencies have said that security and a lack of permissions from the Israeli military frequently hold up distribution. The UNICEF spokesman told CNN that the agency 'cannot work miracles' with last-minute windows for getting aid into Gaza, because malnourished children require sustained care. The World Food Programme welcomed the Israeli announcement, saying it has enough food in – or on its way to – the region to feed the entire population of 2.1 million people for almost three months. It said it had received assurances that quicker clearances would be granted by Israel to allow for a surge in food assistance. The decision to enable aid to flow has already sparked dissent within the Israeli government coalition. The far-right National Security minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he had not been consulted and the 'only way to win the war and bring back the hostages is to completely stop the 'humanitarian' aid, conquer the entire strip, and encourage voluntary migration.' The Hostages Families Forum said the tactical pauses should be part of a broader agreement to secure the return of the hostages. 'This is what the failure of the partial deals strategy looks like,' it said, demanding the government reach 'a comprehensive agreement to release all the kidnapped and end the fighting.'
Egypt Independent
an hour ago
- Egypt Independent
Trump lands another big win with EU trade deal, but he can't dodge the Epstein saga
President Donald Trump claimed another win for his campaign to transform the global economy and American life, but he still can't escape intensifying questions over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein controversy. The United States clinched a framework deal with the European Union on Sunday that averted a damaging trade war. Trump believes such moves will revive US manufacturing. But the resulting 15 percent tariff on EU goods entering the US likely means American consumers will face higher prices in the long term. This is a significant step. So Trump's insistence that it was not simply a bid to distract from the Epstein saga is reasonable. 'Oh, you have got to be kidding with that,' the angry president told a reporter. But his irritation underscored his failure to shrug off weeks of revelations about the case and his own past friendship with the accused sex trafficker, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial. Mystery surrounds the administration's motives after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, met last week with Epstein's imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. Her lawyer implied that Maxwell was open to a presidential pardon. Trump's record of using such power for political purposes has critics warning he may be seeking a deal that would politicize justice. The storm back home isn't abating. Two lawmakers, one Democrat and the other Republican, vowed Sunday to force a vote on the House floor on the release of Epstein case files. Such a vote could embarrass the administration and create a major political showdown. This came on a typically frenetic weekend that Trump spent in Scotland and that served as a metaphor for his turbulent influence on America and the globe. He juggled the highest-level diplomacy — talks with the EU's top official, Ursula von der Leyen — with a trip promoting his business empire, in this case his portfolio of exclusive Scottish golf clubs. His visit was greeted with street protests by caustic Scots and featured outbursts of extreme rhetoric — including his social media call for the prosecution of former Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump will come face-to-face Monday with pressure to force Israel to do more to mitigate a growing famine in Gaza. He'll see British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his Turnberry resort in southwest Scotland before traveling with Starmer to Aberdeenshire, where Trump will inaugurate a new course at another club. Starmer last week said of the crisis in Gaza that 'we are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.' A significant trade deal that comes with many caveats Much is unknown about the scope of the trade deal with the EU, which will see a 15% tariff imposed on most of the bloc's exports and billions of dollars in purchases of US energy. But it extends a winning streak and a record of implementing campaign promises for a president who is imposing personal power and often idiosyncratic beliefs — for instance in the effectiveness of trade tariffs — on the US and the world. 'This was the big one. This is the biggest of them all,' Trump said Sunday after meeting von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. Von der Leyen followed the accepted wisdom that praising Trump personally can provide political payoffs. 'He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker,' she said. Trump has recently announced framework deals on trade with Japan and the Philippines — which both include higher tariffs that represent a fracturing of the 21st-century global free-trade arrangements. Trump believes that this system, which helped make the US a dominant global power, is nevertheless unfair on American workers and industries. And he rejects economists' arguments that raising tariffs increases prices for already-stretched US consumers. Traversing cranes move shipping containers stacked in Hamburg Port in Hamburg, Germany, on April is flexing power everywhere. He is gutting the federal government, dominating Congress, and exerting unprecedented pressure on law firms and universities to impose his right-wing ideology, all while seeking to intimidate media outlets. These are wins for his populist 'Make America Great Again' movement and its program to buckle what supporters see as liberal power. But as with Trump's outlier belief in tariffs, the long-term impacts that his actions could have on American society, the economy and democracy are alarming critics. Trump has politicized the legal system; his government funding cuts have hampered vital scientific research on critical subjects such as cancer; and his expanding of presidential power often tests the Constitution. Still, markets may welcome the EU trade deal framework, assuming it is fully implemented — hardly a given considering Trump's volatile history of threats and reversals. An EU-US trade war would have been a far worse outcome. But the agreement confirms suspicions that Trump's goal is not fairer trade but higher tariffs. Although existing tariffs have so far not harmed the economy as much as some experts feared, Americans will pay more for cars, food, luxuries and consumer goods. The inflationary impact on the economy, and Trump's likely appointment next year of a new Federal Reserve chair who will lower interest rates, could mean greater economic threats to come. There's also an important geopolitical aspect to the EU trade deal. The Europeans committed to buying $880 billion of energy from the US. This could make America's NATO allies less vulnerable to pressure from Russia at a time when the Western alliance is opposing Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. 'We still have too much Russian LNG (liquid natural gas) that is coming through the back door again to our European Union, and some Russian gas and oil still in the European Union, which we do not want anymore,' von der Leyen said. Epstein drama haunts Trump's Scottish golf trip Trump's frustration that a key political achievement has been overshadowed by the Epstein saga is unlikely to dissipate in the coming days. The controversy started because of conspiracy theories among Trump's base that claimed the disgraced financier did not take his own life in prison but was murdered, and that he left behind a client list of rich and powerful Americans who'd taken advantage of his alleged sex trafficking. These claims were promoted by Trump and allies including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel. When all three assumed positions of great power (Bondi is attorney general, and Patel is FBI director), their failure to release the files as promised caused a rupture in Trump's MAGA base, which the administration has failed thus far to repair. The political uproar explains why Blanche's meeting with Maxwell last week caused such consternation. Maxwell's lawyer told reporters after her second day of meetings with Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida, that she had answered every question truthfully and honestly. He also noted that the president has the power to pardon those convicted of crimes. 'We hope he exercises that power in a right and just way,' the attorney, David Oscar Markus, said Friday. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell attend a benefit concert in New York in 2005. Joe Schildhorn/Blanche has so far not offered a detailed public account of the meetings. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Trump in his relationship with Epstein, and the president appears to have severed the friendship long before the accused sex trafficker was charged with federal crimes. But the Justice Department's unorthodox approach is raising concerns that it goes beyond a public relations effort to convince MAGA voters the administration is doing something. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison term, has an incentive for providing information that could ease her situation — and Trump has the power to do so. Questions over the president's motives became even more important when CNN and other outlets reported last week that Trump's name was mentioned in the Epstein files, along with those of some other prominent Americans. This does not mean that he or anyone else is guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, Bondi might have made the correct decision legally in refusing to release information that could harm the reputation of people not accused of crimes. But beyond a joint Justice Department and FBI statement on the rationale for not releasing the files, the administration has rarely attempted to justify a policy that has put it at odds with its own supporters in the MAGA movement. 'I'm concerned that the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, is meeting with (Maxwell) supposedly one-on-one,' Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday. 'Look, I agree … that she should testify. But she's been indicted twice on perjury. This is why we need the files.' Republican leaders hoped the case might simply disappear over the summer recess. But Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor with Khanna of a House bill demanding the release of the files, isn't giving up. 'This is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms. The voters will be apathetic if we don't hold the rich and powerful accountable,' Massie said on NBC. 'I think when we get back, we can get the signatures required to force this to the floor.' The Trump administration has asked the courts to release grand jury testimony pertinent to the Epstein case. But one federal judge refused last week, in a ruling that may have given the DOJ political cover. 'We want them to release the files. However, we can't make them release it because of separation of power,' Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin told Jake Tapper on CNN's 'State of the Union.' That may be the case. But grand jury testimony is believed to be only a fraction of the evidence against Epstein that the government holds — and hasn't made public. And the entire controversy has been worsened by the administration's clumsy approach and unwillingness to confront the anger of the MAGA base. 'I think that part of this problem is that there were some false expectations that are created, and that's a political mistake,' Missouri Republican Rep. Eric Burlison told CNN's Manu Raju.
