Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets this week to denounce Israel’s war on Gaza and the prospect of it forcibly displacing Palestinians to Sinai. The protests came a day after President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi warned, in a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, that millions of Egyptians would protest the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and any relocation to Sinai.

Ashraf Rashad, leader of the parliamentary majority party Mostaqbal Watan, told Al-Ahram Weekly that President Al-Sisi’s call for protests had led thousands to take to the streets across the country.

“While some of the rallies were mobilised by political parties, others erupted spontaneously to protest Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians, show solidarity with them and condemn Israeli plans to resettle Gaza residents in Sinai,” he said.

Following Friday prayers on 20 October, the National Dialogue organised a mass protest in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in East Cairo’s Nasr City. A statement by the National Dialogue’s Board of Trustees said the rally underscored that Egyptians would defend their homeland and back the legitimate rights of Palestinians, including the creation of an independent state within the pre-4 June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

MP and businessman Mohamed Al-Sallab led the protests in Nasr City. He said the rallies gave Egyptians a chance to express their anger at Israel for its brutal war on the Gaza strip and the relentless Israeli airstrikes which had killed thousands of civilians, including more than 1,000 children, coupled with a complete blockade, depriving Gazans of food, water, fuel, power and medicines.

Demonstrators also ringed Al-Azhar Mosque in downtown Cairo, the Sunni world’s foremost religious institution, chanting that Israel remained their enemy “generation after generation” and repeating the slogan “we give our souls and blood to Al-Aqsa”.

Hani Ouda, the general manager of Al-Azhar Mosque, said the rage of protesters was directed not only at Israel’s war against 2.3 million Gazans but also at the double standards of the West.

“They are ready to denounce Russian airstrikes against Ukraine, but they are not ready to do the same with the Israel’s savage bombing of Gaza and forced displacement of Palestinians,” he said.

 “We see the West, led by America, turning a blind eye to Israeli massacres even though they represent a flagrant violation of international law and human conscience,” said Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawki Allam.

One of the banners carried by demonstrators at Al-Azhar read “the crime is Zionist and the missile is American”.

Protests swept cities in 27 governorates. In Alexandria several political parties organised a three-day demonstration in Sidi Gaber. Ahmed Al-Sharif, MP and member of the Islamist Nour Party, said that “during these hard times, Egyptians must unite behind the country’s Armed Forces to take all measures necessary to protect national security”.

Demonstrations organised by the Press Syndicate attacked the Camp David accords and the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, with protestors chanting “down with the Camp David Accords, the treaty is condemned with the blood of every martyr” and “generation after generation, we are against the Israeli occupation”.

Students at the American University in Cairo (AUC) organised two demonstrations at the AUC campus in New Cairo to show solidarity with the Palestinians and condemn the West’s indifference to Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives and the Senate held emergency sessions to express solidarity with Palestinians and denounce Israeli plans to displace them to Sinai. The House’s secretary-general Ahmed Manaa said the emergency meeting was held at the request of hundreds of MPs outraged by Israel’s merciless shelling of Gaza’s infrastructure and brutal murder of thousands of civilians. “MPs were also moved by President Al-Sisi’s statement at the press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which he categorically rejected the resettling of Palestinians in Sinai and called on Egyptians to protest Israel’s plans,” said Manaa.

Al-Sisi had warned that “moving the Palestinians to Egypt means that Sinai will become a new base of operations against Israel and Israel would have the right to defend itself through attacks on Egyptian land, signaling the end of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty…”

Ahmed Saadeddin, the House’s deputy speaker, said that following the president’s statement MPs had opted to hold an emergency session to send a message to the world that they are ready to give him a “mandate” to take all necessary measures to defend Egypt’s national security and protect the country from foreign threats.

He added that the atrocities being committed by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including the shelling Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital and systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, constitute a crime against humanity.

MP after MP took the floor to denounce Israel’s savage war crimes and condemn Israeli attempts to force Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai, many holding Egyptian flags and wearing Palestinian keffiyehs. They called on Egyptians to protest against Israel’s conspiracies and support President Al-Sisi and the Armed Forces in taking all necessary measures to protect Egypt’s national security.

MP Amr Al-Borollosi said the House’s emergency session was not just about “showing solidarity with the Palestinians but also about defending the integrity of Egyptian territory in the face of Israeli conspiracies”, stressing that the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel “should not stand as an obstacle to this”.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 October, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly