With the countdown starting towards a widely anticipated Israeli strike against Iranian military targets, Egypt this week hosted meetings with top Gulf officials to discuss the Israeli wars on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, as well as the threatened strike against Iran.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman arrived in Cairo for talks with President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on Tuesday afternoon, just a few days after a visit by President of the UAE Mohamed bin Zayed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was also expected for talks with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty.

Al-Sisi’s talks were expected to cover a wide range of bilateral interests, including major economic schemes with Saudi Arabia and wider trade cooperation with Iran. However, political and military developments in the Middle East and the Red Sea were expected to feature high on the agenda.

Egyptian diplomatic sources said that the key message that Al-Sisi would be conveying this week was an appeal for de-escalation.

“We are convinced that Israel needs to come round to a ceasefire, and despite the fact that we know this is unlikely to happen before [early next year], we are still working with the Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans,” one of these sources said.

He added that over the last week Egypt has also received senior Israeli delegations to discuss possible security measures that could help to bring about a ceasefire in the wars.

Egypt also received delegations from the Palestinian factions, especially Hamas and Fatah, to discuss plans for the management of Gaza to replace the rule of Hamas that has been in place since 2007 and to give a push to the chances of a ceasefire.

“We made some progress with the possibility of forming a committee that would run Gaza once a ceasefire is in place,” the same diplomatic source said. He added that there was still a lot more work to be done before the nature and mandate of this committee could be agreed and that more meetings would be hosted in Cairo over the coming weeks to help finalise its structure before the inauguration of the new US president in January 2025.

The second week of January seems to be the tentative date for a possible ceasefire that leading international and regional capitals are working on in order to end the Israeli wars on Gaza and on southern Lebanon.

“Things might linger a bit given that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is using the political uncertainty in Washington to achieve his objectives, but it will not be for long,” the same diplomat said.

He added that while there has been discussion of the possible foreign-policy choices of the two main candidates in the US presidential elections, Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump, many would agree that whoever wins there will be a serious push to end the Israeli wars.

Already, he said, the current administration of US President Joe Biden is working on a “mega deal” that should secure a “comprehensive arrangement for the Middle East.”

According to Cairo-based foreign diplomatic sources, this deal would include an end to the Israeli wars on Gaza and Lebanon in return for the elimination of the major combat capacities of all the Islamic militant resistance groups, particularly Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon, an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and inspections of it, Saudi-Israeli normalisation, and the establishment of a political pathway to the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state.

The same sources said that by getting all the parties to agree on at least some elements of such a mega deal, Washington would be better placed to push Israel to start working on ending its wars.

Egyptian sources said that the deal was on the agenda of talks between senior officials in Cairo and their counterparts in the Arab Gulf capitals, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

They added that Cairo is convinced that there is no serious possibility of militant resistance “leading to the creation” of a Palestinian state. “We have seen that the militant attempts by Hamas and Hizbullah did not deliver, and in fact only opened the door for Israel to start aggressive and destructive wars on Gaza and Lebanon,” the same diplomat said.

“Now is the time to be pragmatic and to pursue de-escalation and political solutions.”

But for Egyptian and Cairo-based foreign diplomats, it seems highly unlikely that the Netanyahu government will do anything that could lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will work against the creation of such a state, and according to well-informed diplomatic sources in some Western capitals, including Washington, he has made it clear to his top allies that he is determined to reoccupy northern Gaza and possibly even parts of the West Bank as part of larger efforts to quell the chances of Hamas recovering from the war that started on 7 October last year in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel called Al-Aqsa Flood.

The sources said that for now it is best to focus on the short-term objective of the proposed US mega deal, namely de-escalation.

De-escalation is also the key agenda item on the Arab tour of the Iranian foreign minister, who has been to Doha, Baghdad, Riyadh, and Beirut to coordinate a regional initiative aimed at curbing the violence in Gaza and Lebanon and preventing the situation from spiralling out of control.

Iranian officials believe that regional coordination is now more crucial than ever, given Israel’s declared plans to assert its dominance over the Middle East and revive its “Greater Israel” project. This would entail dissolving the Palestinian issue, the annexation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, and the displacement of millions of Palestinians to neighbouring countries and beyond, they say.

Iranian sources also said that they have secured guarantees from the Gulf states that their airspace will not be used for any future Israeli strikes on Iran.

However, Tehran recognises that the region is facing unprecedented challenges and could be on the verge of significant changes, prompting a reassessment of its national security strategy. In an early sign of such changes Hizbullah leader Naim Qassem said this week that the group is willing to suspend its attacks on the north of Israel, which had forced the displacement of Israeli residents, if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Hizbullah started what it qualified as “a support war” for Hamas in Gaza on 8 October 2023.

According to sources close to government circles in the Arab Gulf states, there is a great deal of concern that if de-escalation is not secured, a possible Iranian-Israeli confrontation could prompt some pro-Iranian militias in Yemen and Iraq to attack oil facilities in the Arab Gulf states.

These Arab Gulf countries have mostly made it clear that they are not planning to allow Israeli jetfighters to use their airspace if attacks are launched against Iran. As part of their attempts to avoid being caught in the crossfire, the Arab Gulf states, including the UAE and Bahrain which have had diplomatic relations with Israel since late 2020, have also acted to suspend or decrease their cooperation with Israel.

Egypt is particularly concerned that the pro-Iranian Houthis should suspend their attacks, including those against vessels passing through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal.

These attacks have forced hundreds of vessels to change their route, bringing down Suez Canal revenues by almost 50 per cent. Egypt is also concerned that if de-escalation is not achieved, there could be hikes in oil prices to add more pressure on an already strained national budget.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly