On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, Cairo was scheduled to receive two negotiating delegations — one from Hamas, the second from the Palestinian Authority (PA) — for yet another Gaza ceasefire push. Meanwhile, Egyptian envoys were expected to resume trips to Doha and Tel Aviv in pursuit of the same goal.

“We are moving forward very slowly — even slower than we expected before the end of 2024 — but some progress is being made,” said an informed Egyptian source. He explained, however, there are still “Israeli procrastinations”. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not that keen to give the final go ahead for the Israeli negotiating teams to sign a deal that will start the ceasefire process,” said the source. He explained that, with the exception of a full list of surviving Israeli captives and the names Israel is not willing to include in any swap deal, “everything else in the ceasefire deal has been for the most part managed”.

Hamas, according to Egyptian and other diplomatic sources, had requested a week of no hostilities to be able to review the status of the Israelis held in Gaza to avoid inaccuracies.

 “The [Hamas delegation] tells us that they are not sure who is alive and who is dead and need time and freedom of movement to access the necessary information,” said the source.

He added that Hamas and Israel might agree to a partial deal that will allow for ceasefire pending management of the list that Netanyahu has requested, saying that Egypt is trying to help Hamas as much as it can because Cairo would like to get a ceasefire started, if only partially, before the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president on 20 January.

“We are working closely with Qatar,” said the source. He explained that both Cairo and Doha are convinced that Netanyahu is procrastinating pending the inauguration of Trump “because he is sure that once Trump is inaugurated Hamas will be in a weaker negotiating place”.

Two Egyptian diplomatic sources who spoke this week said Netanyahu is putting the ceasefire on hold pending Trump’s inauguration while simultaneously pushing Israeli military operations in the West Bank.

“It looks like Netanyahu wants an aggressive Israeli operation in the West Bank to be a fait accompli,” said one of the two diplomats.

This week, following an attack on Israeli military targets in the West Bank, Netanyahu and his top military aides said they would not hesitate to turn the West Bank into “a second Gaza”.

According to the second Egyptian diplomat, “the Jordanians are talking to everyone, including Trump’s foreign policy team, openly warning against such an apocalyptic scenario and its impact on Jordan”.

An aggressive Israeli military operation, which could include partial annexation of the West Bank, would cause widespread anger in Jordan which hosts many Palestinians. Egypt, said the diplomat, has been supporting Jordan’s “perfectly legitimate worries”.

“We are telling our Western interlocutors, including members of US Congress and Trump foreign policy aides, that a crisis in the West Bank would have a hugely troubling impact on Jordan and the region,” he said. He added that what Egypt wants from the new Trump administration is a push for a ceasefire in Gaza and for non-Israeli intervention in the West Bank.

Neither of the two diplomats seemed confident that Trump would be willing to expend political capital with Netanyahu so soon. Both expressed the worry that Trump and Netanyahu will prioritise pressuring Iran, including with military threats, over resolving the Palestinian situation.  

The same diplomats say Cairo also has questions over how far the Trump administration will go in engaging with the situation in Syria. They both agree that Washington is unlikely to adopt a tough approach to the new political dispensation in Syria — either because it does not want to get too involved so soon after Trump’s inauguration, or because it would prefer to leave it to Turkey, given the good rapport between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

What matters most for the US, they say, is that Damascus keeps its distance from Iran, and also from Russia, which is already moving part of its military capacity from Syria to Libya.

Unlike Turkey, a key supporter of the new political regime in Damascus, Egypt is openly apprehensive about the future of Syria under the new Islamist-militant regime.

A government source said that Egypt has sent a message via Arab diplomats who have met with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus asking for him to commit to non-intervention in Egyptian affairs.

The source added that though the response “was positive”, Cairo remains apprehensive over Al-Sharaa’s true intentions. Unlike Arab capitals that have sent envoys to Damascus or received representatives of Syria’s new political regime, Egypt has opted to bide its time. A high-level Egyptian official will visit Syria “in due time”, but the date has yet to be scheduled.

The same source said Egypt is consulting with partners, including France, whose foreign minister joined his German counterpart in visiting Damascus earlier in the week, to send a message from the Europeans about “what is expected of the new regime” in terms of liberties, rights and inclusiveness.

An Arab League delegation is expected to visit Damascus in the coming few days. According to a statement issued by the office of Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary general to the Arab league, the delegation will meet with Syria’s new leaders and representatives of Syrian political groups.

“We are watching closely. We think there should be a comprehensive Arab approach towards Syria,” the government source said. He added that while Egypt understands the key role of Turkey in Syria’s immediate future, it also believes Arab states have to be reassured about the intentions of the HTS regime.

Egypt and the UAE share worries that events in Syria could embolden Islamist groups elsewhere. “This is a red line for us and one of the key reasons behind the delay in any visit of senior Egyptian officials to Syria,” said the source.

On Sudan, he continued, Cairo is closer to Turkey, which has offered to mediate with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), than to the UAE, which has strongly supported the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war with the Sudanese army.

Egypt is “coordinating its work on Sudan” with that of Turkey.

“What the Turks are working on is essentially an attempt to end the confrontation between the SAF and the UAE rather than between the SAF and the RSF,” he explained.

“The crux of the idea is for the SAF to reassure the UAE about its interests and investments in Sudan provided the UAE suspends aid to the RSF which then withdraws from the conflict in a reconciliatory fashion.”

What Egypt is working on, according to the same government source, is to create a broad political coalition that could work with the SAF and develop a consensual roadmap for Sudan’s future.

“We are talking to the Turks and to others who have an interest in Sudan and in the Red Sea zone and will be talking to the Americans in detail once the new administration takes over,” he said.  

Egypt is keen to end instability in Sudan and around the Red Sea, both of which impact crucial Egyptian interests: navigation to and from the Suez Canal, which has sustained considerable losses as a result of Houthi attacks on shipping, and the flow of Nile water from Ethiopia, which arrives in Egypt via Sudan.

The government source said there is no clarity yet on whether the Trump administration will endorse Cairo’s objectives on this front. It is also unclear whether Trump will try to revive his first administration’s diplomatic push to get Ethiopia to sign a legally binding agreement on the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly