Other key players include the United States and Qatar, but the fact that Egypt is the only country that borders Gaza and its historical involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict has added to its responsibility to help in every possible way to end a nightmare that has lasted over 90 days.
While it is difficult to comprehend or even state, the heartbreaking reality of over 22,000 Palestinians killed — some 70 per cent of them children — and another 60,000 injured exposes the hypocrisy of any talk of a civilised world granting equal rights to all human beings. Thousands more are feared to be buried under the rubble, with no means available to the local authorities to remove and bury them. Moreover, with Israel using starvation as a weapon in its revenge war — in itself this amounts to a war crime — there are serious fears of widespread famine and disease due to the lack of basic needs and the destruction of nearly 80 per cent of Gaza’s buildings.
In this framework, Egypt reportedly presented initial proposals to Israel, Hamas and other concerned parties with the final aim of reaching a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to end Israel’s military occupation there. Considering that this goal seems far-fetched at this stage, noting the public statements of Israeli officials who continue to be driven by revenge rather than reasonable thinking following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, the initial Egyptian proposals suggested moving in three stages, each leading to the other and kick-started at the same time.
Building on the short, one-week truce at the end of November which led to the exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas, the initial stage in the Egyptian proposal calls for a similar but longer truce that would allow the exchange of a second batch of prisoners and the entry of much need humanitarian aid to Gaza, as stated in the recently approved United Nations Security Council resolution.
While the resolution did not call for an immediate ceasefire, it demands lengthy humanitarian pauses. Yet, all parties involved recognise that, without a fully respected ceasefire, any talk of increasing or speeding up humanitarian aid to Gaza remains wishful thinking. United Nations organisations working in Gaza, along with other humanitarian groups, all stressed that they cannot distribute or move aid while Israel continues to bombard Gaza by air, sea, and land.
Hamas and other Palestinian armed resistance groups, such as the Islamic Jihad, have stressed that they will no longer accept short-term pauses in fighting, insisting that they will not release any Israeli prisoners until a permanent ceasefire is implemented. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to say that the war will go on for months, and his right-wing, extremist government says it will never allow Hamas any future role in Gaza.
Considering such a wide gap in the stands of the two sides, Egypt’s hope is that a short-term truce will develop into a permanent ceasefire, and move further to revive long-stalled peace negotiations with the aim of creating an independent Palestinian state.
Egypt suggested immediately starting a national dialogue among Palestinian factions to reach an agreement on a new government whose principal responsibility would be to help in providing the much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza and launch the predictably long process of rebuilding the Strip where nearly 2.5 million live.
Egypt, along with other Arab countries, as well as the United States, insist on keeping the two-state solution alive, and will not tolerate a re-occupation of Gaza or the total separation between the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza that make up a future Palestinian state.
In this respect, Egypt has confirmed that it would not take part in determining the structure or composition of any future Palestinian government, and that this decision would be left to Palestinians alone. This had been the stated Egyptian policy long before the Israeli war started three months ago, and in many rounds of reconciliation talks which Cairo hosted among key Palestinian factions topped with Fatah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad.
Once a longer, temporary ceasefire is reached in which more Palestinian and Israeli prisoners are exchanged, starting with non-combatants, and a new national unity Palestinian government is formed, then it will be possible to move into the third and final stage of the Egyptian proposal. That difficult third stage would require reaching agreement on a permanent ceasefire, ending Israel’s military presence in Gaza and agreeing on the terms for the exchange of remaining Israeli army officers and soldiers captured by Hamas in return for all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons before and after 7 October.
The current extremist government in Israel is likely to continue airing illusory goals such as the total destruction of Hamas in an attempt to safeguard its own existence while facing growing public anger for failing to protect Israelis on 7 October and humiliating the Israeli army by involving it in an endless war in which it has suffered heavy losses.
Yet the entire world is fed up with the daily massacres committed by Israel against Palestinian civilians. However, those feelings of anger and disapproval should translate into backing Egyptian efforts and proposals to reach a final and permanent, just settlement of the Palestinian cause, instead of living in a perpetual state of war which will be the case if Israel’s current extremist, racist strategy in dealing with the rights of the Palestinian people does not change.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 January, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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