Cairo is keeping a close watch on developments on the ground in Libya and Sudan, its direct neighbours to the west and south, where civil wars have been unfolding. According to government sources, there is deep concern that neither country will see the conflicting parties put down their arms any time soon. Government sources said both countries look set to face more rounds of intense fighting.
The sources say Cairo has preferred sides in both wars, but this does not mean that Egypt will support open-ended civil strife to allow for the ultimate victory of the side it supports since that would not be in the best interest of Egyptian national security.
“We believe that there has to be stability somehow —through some political mechanism or other,” one of the sources said. He added that next week Egypt is planning to have meetings with Libyan politicians to assess ways the situation might be contained. There has been a significant deterioration in recent weeks, with demonstrations in the capital, Tripoli, against Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbeibeh.
Despite the reduction in tensions between Cairo and Dbeibeh, who was appointed in February 2021, over the past year, relations between Tripoli and Cairo have never reached a smooth point. That said, the sources stress that Egypt is unhappy about the demonstrations and renewed clashes between armed factions in the Libyan capital.
“The conflict in Libya can be resolved through a comprehensive political settlement that will only come with international pressure, especially from the US,” said the same source. He added that at the moment there is not enough pressure on any of the parties to start a political process that could begin “the long and difficult path towards stability in the country”.
Egypt had helped the leader of eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar, assemble the core of a national Libyan army. It was not an easy task, however, since Libya, after four decades under Muammar Gaddafi, had become very fragmented.
Cairo is working on Libya’s stability pending a time when some form of consensus emerges between its conflicting leaders.
This, the sources say, runs counter to the schemes of some regional powers which have been heavily involved in Libya over the past decade and are still working to keep one side dominant over the other. Particularly disturbing for Egypt is the discussion of a possible deal under which Libyan leaders accommodate the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza in return for more international recognition.
On Sunday, the US Embassy in Tripoli denied a report put out by an American TV network of a plan to move a million Palestinians to Libya but Al-Ahram Weekly’s sources say the report was not completely unfounded. “I am not saying that there is a plan under implementation, but I can say that the idea has been tabled for discussion and there has been some back and forth on it,” said one source.
He added that a similar discussion has been picked up by at least one Arab capital involving leaders of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, who have been in a civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023. The RSF, he continued, is also willing to consider accommodating Palestinians in return for political recognition, and this comes at a time when the SAF has been making steady progress on the ground, including taking control of a key road that connects the north of Darfur with the confluence of the Egyptian, Libyan, and Sudanese borders.
The same source, who spoke openly of Egypt’s “legitimate support of the SAF, which falls squarely within the commitment of Egypt to endorse national armies and institutions,” said that while recent military advances by the SAF are important, they are not final. None of the Egyptian sources who spoke to the Weekly said the SAF’s progress was irreversible. They all agreed that the battle is still on and could continue for much longer, especially given the conflicting regional agendas of influential capitals.
In a meeting in Cairo on Sunday with Mossaad Boulos, senior advisor to the US president on the Middle East and Africa, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi shared concerns over regional developments, especially in Libya which, despite some containment efforts, is on the brink of renewed violent clashes. According to a statement issued by the presidential press office, during his talks with Boulos, Al-Sisi shared concerns over the “devastating impact of the lack of stability in Libya on Egypt”.
On Monday, President Al-Sisi received his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun for the first bilateral summit between the two leaders since Aoun came to office in January this year. The bilateral summit came shortly after the Arab ordinary summit that convened in Baghdad without the participation of Aoun who, like most Arab leaders, missed the top annual Arab gathering.
According to the press office of the president, the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and stability. What was really at stake, said an Egyptian political source, was Egypt’s “profound support” for Aoun’s mandate to build stability in Lebanon on the basis of state control of arms, the management of the Lebanese border with Israel and the security of Lebanon’s border with Syria.
The source said this aligns with Egypt’s regional agenda.
“What Egypt wants is a reduction of all armed conflicts in the region, especially in its immediate neighbourhood.” He added that while Lebanon seems to have passed the point of any possible re-ignition of confrontations between Hizbullah and Israel, it is important to support full control of the “Lebanese state and Lebanese national army” of the borders and north to the Litani River to deny Israel any pretext to re-start a war in Lebanon.
According to the same source, Cairo is also “very keen” on fostering stability inside Lebanon, especially given the considerable Palestinian presence, including Palestinian militant resistance movements. Last month, the Lebanese army arrested members of Hamas in two Palestinian refugee camps.
The same source said this also applies to Jordan. Arab countries neighbouring Israel need to be extra vigilant to avoid giving Israel any excuse to expand its genocidal war on Gaza.
The situation is particularly sensitive for Lebanon and Jordan given the Palestinian presence in both countries.
In brief press statements made during his talks with President Al-Sisi at the Ittihadiya Palace in Heliopolis, President Aoun said that “peace has become a very big challenge for the entire region.”
According to the Egyptian government sources, while peace remains a distant goal, a more reasonable objective is a reduction in the level of armed conflicts in the region.
“Let us be realistic. It is not possible to think of peace, in the real sense of the word, with the current Israeli government in office,” said one. He added that “expansion of hostilities is exactly what the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is after.”
“The bigger, the longer, and the wider the wars, the merrier for Netanyahu. He thrives on military conflicts.”
During his Sunday meeting with Boulos, Al-Sisi stressed the need for US President Donald Trump to work towards ending the war in Gaza.
Cairo is aware of the growing sense of tension between Trump and Netanyahu over the latter’s lack of cooperation on getting a partial hostage deal done. According to an Egyptian diplomatic source, however, despite the “clear evidence of tension”, including the fact that US Vice President JD Vance decided to delay a scheduled trip to Israel because of the expansion of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, there is not much confidence in Cairo that Trump will invest the political capital needed to get Netanyahu to wrap up his war in Gaza that has already killed over 60,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The sources say that Trump is still invested in helping the joint Egyptian-Qatari mediation to rework the ceasefire secured on the eve of his inauguration in January and which collapsed in March. They add that it is also clear that he is trying to somehow improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza. But they also agree the US president is not willing to go much further than pushing for the entry of some humanitarian aid, noting that while he was in Riyadh last week for his first official overseas presidential visit, Trump spoke about the need to consider steps towards normalisation with Israel.
In his statement to the Arab Summit in Baghdad on Saturday, President Al-Sisi said that, in the absence of a fair and comprehensive peace, normalisation agreements cannot bring about stability.
Meanwhile, Egypt is still working closely with Qatar to try and secure a partial deal under which half the surviving hostages in Gaza are released in return for a weeks-long ceasefire, sustainable entry of humanitarian aid and the release of a few hundred Palestinians from Israeli jails.
A source close to the ongoing negotiations said that a temporary ceasefire seems to be the only way to give Gazans a break from the strikes and displacement they have been forced to endure over the past year and a half.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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