This week, Cairo condemned the Israeli war on Lebanon in a series of carefully worded statements. One, issued by the press office of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, followed a phone call the president made with Lebanon’s Acting Prime Minister Naguib Miqati. Another was issued by Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty while he was in New York heading the Egyptian delegation to the UN General Assembly.

Neither statement referred directly to the series of Israeli assassinations which culminated on Friday with the killing of Hizbullah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders in an attack which used 80 bunker busting bombs and killed scores of innocent civilians. Both statements did, however, call on Israel to avoid further attacks on Lebanon which threaten a regional war.

Egyptian diplomats who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly before and after the killing of Nasrallah said that the situation is on the cusp of spiralling out of control.

“When we look at the situation in Lebanon, with all its complexities and layers, we are not looking just at the impact of Nasrallah’s assassination on Islamic resistance movements in Lebanon, Gaza, and elsewhere,” said one diplomat who has served in Lebanon. Rather, concerns are now focused on the stability of Lebanon, a country which underwent a civil war between 1975 and 1990.

According to this diplomat, as Hizbullah supporters mourn Nasrallah, some in the country, who had been increasingly critical of Nasrallah’s involvement in a military confrontation with Israel, will have been pleased by the removal of a man they blame for destabilising Lebanon.

“In Lebanon it takes just one unfortunate incident for things to go wrong,” said another diplomat who also served in Lebanon. He added that, despite the reassuring signals of a collective aversion against a new civil war and the solidarity demonstrated in recent days as people have come together to help Lebanese citizens displaced from the south, tensions could all too easily bubble over.

Both diplomats said what happens next will depend on whether an Israeli ground invasion, which seemed to be in the making despite multiple appeals to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from sending troops across the Lebanon border, actually happens.

 

STATE ARMIES, NOT MILITIAS: Egypt has been watching the involvement of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Yemen in attacks on Israeli targets under the banner of supporting Hamas with growing unease. Cairo is particularly worried by attacks by Yemen’s pro-Iran Houthis in Yemen on vessels heading to Israel through the Red Sea.

President Al-Sisi has repeatedly raised the issue of how these attacks have reduced the number of ships passing through the Suez Canal, causing a significant drop in Canal revenues at a time when Egypt is already suffering from a shortage in foreign currency. Further regional escalation, Al-Sisi said this week, will only compound the hardships Egyptians are facing.

According to government sources, it is not just the economic ramifications — a fall in Suez Canal and tourist revenues — that are concerning Cairo. An open-ended war on Egypt’s borders could seriously threaten wider national security.

On Monday there was growing apprehension in Cairo as Israel upped the belligerence of its statements on any upcoming ground invasion into Lebanon. Once the invasion starts, government sources say, there is no guarantee it can be contained. And it may well have passed the impossible-to -contain threshold already.

Since the Israeli war on Gaza started on 7 October last year, Egyptian officials have warned repeatedly that a much wider crisis was in the making. The decision of Hizbullah to fire missiles at the north of Israel met with dismay in Cairo, which argued that while the show of solidarity with Hamas would not help the situation in Gaza, though it would give Netanyahu an excuse to deal with Hizbullah in exactly the same way Hamas is being dealt with.

Egyptian government sources who have spoken to the Weekly over the past year have insisted over and over again that Hamas’ 7 October attack against Israeli targets was “miscalculated”.

According to one source: “Hamas thought that by having a large number of Israeli prisoners, both military and civilians, Israel would liberate all the Palestinian prisoners it has in its jails. They were proven wrong. Netanyahu, as we have seen, is simply not interested in sparing the hostages.”

What Netanyahu is interested in, according to the source, is saving his political career at whatever “cost to Palestinians in Gaza”.

A second goal for Netanyahu is to create a new regional dynamic which has no room for Islamic resistance movements, a goal he has almost achieved with “the capacities of Hamas almost fully eliminated, and Hizbullah significantly weakened”.

But is this prospect good news or bad news for Egypt? The question is a sensitive one to put to Egyptian officials, and their answers, though often indirect, are sufficiently clear: Egypt does not acknowledge militias, especially in sovereign states like Lebanon, and Hamas should not have acted unilaterally if it expected support.

Since 2007, when Hamas won free and fair legislative elections in Gaza and then claimed it was acting to “stop a coup by the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority [PA], Egyptian authorities have on the whole been abrupt with Hamas officials. During the past year, with Cairo in disagreement with the “miscalculations” of Hamas, relations have for the most part been uneasy.

Nor does Egypt, official and other informed sources say, necessarily support the PA’s political choices or performance, a fact clear to both the PA and to Hamas, though Cairo is committed to recognising the PA as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

According to the sources, Egypt has repeatedly tried to open a channel for Palestinian reconciliation but attempts in the past year, as in previous years, have all failed. Most sources blame the failures on Hamas though a few apportion some of the blame on the PA and its leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“We tried to encourage Hamas to think beyond its organisation and its own agenda and push for a reconciliation, or at least the inclusion of Hamas in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, but Hamas’ demands over its role in the political decision-making process made inclusion difficult,” said one source involved in the mediation between Hamas and the PA.

“Then Hamas leaders thought that with the savage Israeli war on Gaza Abbas would be forced to bow to its demands but he did not, and to be honest we did not push him to.”

Egypt, according to the same source, has not encouraged a PA take-over of Hamas for many reasons. The first and most obvious is that Egyptian authorities are at odds with the political ideology of Hamas, both as an Islamist and a resistance movement. The view in Cairo is that neither Hamas nor any other resistance movement will be able to force its will on Israel. Today, as during the last 40 years, Egypt is prescribing negotiations.  

 

BORDER REGULATIONS: Whatever the disagreements with Hamas, Egyptian officials say that it did not take long for the Hamas leader, especially those based in Doha, to accept the Egyptian position that no Palestinian would be allowed across the Egyptian border without prior approval from the Egyptian authorities.

Security bodies in Egypt remember all too well what happened when Palestinians flooded the Egyptian city of Arish during Israel’s war on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. In October 2023, one of the first things Egyptian officials said, especially those with security background, was that there could be no replay. Officials spoke of intensified security measures across the border which made it practically impossible for Palestinians to enter Egyptian territories without permission.

 “We have layers of fortifications there. Every country has the right to secure its borders,” said one official who spoke to the Weekly in autumn 2023.

Egyptian authorities established a mechanism for Palestinians seeking to leave Gaza and either stay in Egypt or leave to another destination via an Egyptian airport. Entry via the Rafah Crossing — the only non-Israeli controlled border connecting Gaza with the rest of the world — is conditional on approval by Egyptian authorities and the payment of the fees charged by the company assigned to oversee the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza. There are, however, as one official stressed, arrangements in place for free entry for Palestinians who need medical help or have other pressing reason to cross into Egypt.

Egyptian authorities were always aware that there was a possibility that massive numbers of Palestinians would end up stranded near the border, but according to officials Cairo was determined to resist being “blackmailed by a humanitarian crisis” created by Israel.

Cairo has made a point of highlighting its work with regional and international partners to provide Gaza with a steady flow of humanitarian aid. Nor have Egyptian officials shied away from acknowledging the fact that this depended on coordination with Israel.

“While Egypt pleaded with the US to pressure Netanyahu to avoid a massive invasion of Rafah, Hamas leaders agreed not to encourage Palestinian civilians to inundate the border with Egypt,” said a source with links to the Hamas leadership. He added that this arrangement survived the worst days of Israel’s attacks on Rafah.

According to the same source, in all the discussions Egypt is conducting on the future of the border between Egypt and Gaza it has been made “clear to the leaders of Hamas that Cairo has to take the Israeli position into account.”

“The message of the Egyptian authorities to the leaders of Hamas is that it was their miscalculations that created the current crisis and Egypt will not fight a war provoked by Hamas’ unilateral actions,” he said.

Other informed sources say that, prior to Israel’s escalation of military action against Lebanon, Egypt was working with the US to secure a deal that would allow for a management of borders in a way that accommodates the needs of Palestinians in Gaza, Egypt’s “security and sovereignty” concerns and the reality on the ground, including “the obvious fact that Netanyahu is not going to allow for things to return to the pre-7 October status quo.” They add that if Egypt has to fight, it will be over “future arrangement in the Philadelphi Corridor”, the 14 km stretch of land that separates Gaza from Egypt.

In response to Netanyahu’s security scheme for the Philadelphi Corridor, Cairo has been pressing the Americans to make it clear to Israel that Egyptian concerns must be accommodated. Security teams from Egypt, the US, and Israel have been trying to reach a consensual deal that includes a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor in parallel with the introduction of a PA presence into Gaza and possibly some other security and political arrangements.

Given escalations along the border with Lebanon, however, discussions on the future of Gaza are being put on the backburner. Negotiations over what will happen on “the day after” are now waiting the outcome of Israel’s war on Lebanon — “as long as Netanyahu does not have other plans” as one Cairo-based foreign diplomat put it.

 

UNENDING MEDIATION: During the past year, Egyptian diplomatic sources have spoken endlessly of mediation — initially with Qatar to try and avoid a prolonged war with Israel, with the Americans, the Israelis, and Qataris to secure a truce to allow for the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and the entry of humanitarian aid, and with Israel and Hamas to allow for the entry of fuel. Before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in March this year, they spoke of intensive talks with the Americans and the Qataris to secure a 60-day ceasefire.

No ceasefire was agreed, despite intensive talks, pressure from the Americans and European appeals. While remaining firm in blaming Hamas for its “miscalculations”, Egyptian sources have become increasingly frustrated with the positions of the Israeli prime minister. Over and over again, sources say, Netanyahu clearly showed he lacked the political will to move towards a ceasefire, finding it politically expedient to continue the war despite international condemnation of the unprecedented humanitarian crisis it had created in Gaza.

Eventually, Egypt decided to work with the Americans and Qataris to draft a deal, in consultation with Hamas leaders, to be offered to Netanyahu for approval. A source close to the drafting process said that it quickly became clear that Netanyahu was sending delegations to meet in Cairo or in Doha to reduce the level of tensions with the US administration — US President Joe Biden was becoming openly critical of the Israeli prime minister — and had no intention of following through on any agreement.

One source said Egyptian concerns reached a peak on 31 July when Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas politburo, while he was in Tehran for the inauguration of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, leading to fears that Iranian retaliation would be used as a pretext by Israel to embark on even more aggressive attacks on Gaza.

Publicly, the Egyptian reaction to the killing of Haniyeh was constrained. Behind the scenes, however, Egyptian officials were asking the Americans about what they though Netanyahu was planning. As one source said at the time, it was one thing for Israel to go after Mohamed Deif, the senior Hamas strategist, and try and assassinate Yehia Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, but quite another to kill Haniyeh who was far from being the most radical Hamas leader.

When Sinwar replaced Haniyeh, it became obvious that Netanyahu had engineered a shift in which Hamas’ most radical elements would now take the lead, undermining Cairo’s attempt to promote more pragmatic figures in both Hamas and the PA.

At the time, one Egyptian diplomat said that while nobody was expecting “an earth-shattering reaction” from Tehran, it was uncertain whether the response would be conducted by Iran, by Hamas, or through Hizbullah in the south of Lebanon.

Following the contained reaction of Iran, and of Hizbullah to the Israeli assassination of Fuad Shukr, the senior commander killed 24 hours before Haniyeh, Egypt worked with the Americans and the Qataris to fast-forward a deal to end the war in Gaza. An Egyptian source close to the negotiation process said that the idea was to put together an acceptable deal to both Hamas and Israel and to secure a straightforward “yes” from both. In fact, Netanyahu had already signalled his approval of the deal formulated by the three mediators, only to backtrack and claim the text had been altered in favour of Hamas.

Netanyahu’s manoeuvring provoked a crisis in the Egyptian-Israeli relations. Egyptian diplomatic and security sources say that throughout the war Egypt had avoided any direct fall-out with Israel, not just as a result of Cairo blaming Hamas for the crisis, but because Egyptian authorities wanted to avoid confusing management of the situation in Gaza with its bilateral relations with Israel.

Since the beginning of the war, sources say Egypt has refrained from three things: escalating rhetoric towards Israel, recalling Egypt’s ambassador to Israel and suspending economic cooperation, whether public or private, with Israel.

During the last 12 months, Cairo reached agreement with Israel to gas exports to Egypt to make up for local shortfalls. Egypt also continued to work with Israel on the liquification and export of Israeli gas, maintained industrial and agricultural cooperation and honoured all security commitments stipulated in the peace treaty signed with Israel in 1979.

Government sources say that Cairo — fully aware that the time for collective Arab rallying against Israel passed with the 2020 signing of the Abraham Accords and the upcoming normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, something which “is still in the works despite the Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon” according to one European diplomatic source — has no intention of undermining its economic interests because of Hamas’ miscalculations.

That said, government sources insist Egypt will not shy away from confronting Israel over its dissemination of misinformation “such as the accusations that Israel made about tunnels between Egypt and Israel still being used to smuggle arms to Hamas” or remain silent when Netanyahu speaks about plans for the Philadelphi Corridor without first consulting the Egyptian authorities.

Such “shows of dismay” have not been “dramatic”, say sources, because Egypt prefers to avoid “high-pitch rhetoric”.

Egypt is instead concentrated on the future of Gaza, whether Netanyahu ends his war there within a matter of weeks or months. And securing that future, one in which Gaza can move forward and begin to live again, inevitably involves working with Israel, the Americans, the Qataris, the Turks, and the Iranians.

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly