With growing tension between Cairo and Tel Aviv over the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, its violations of Palestinian rights in the West Bank and its violation of international law across many other regional fronts, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told Al-Ahram Weekly’s Chief Editor Ezzat Ibrahim in an exclusive interview that Egypt will continue to oppose all attempts to undermine Palestinian rights, including Israeli attempts to force the Palestinians into displacement in what amounts to a second Nakba. “The notion of displacement itself is morally and ethically corrupt, not to mention outright illegal. Palestinians should never be forced to leave their homeland.”
Abdelatty warned that “Israel’s war in Gaza clearly reflects that its outlook to the future of this region is very different from ours and the Arab world.”
Speaking to the Weekly prior to flying out to New York for the UN General Assembly meeting, the top diplomat reiterated that Egypt is committed to working with partners to end the Israeli war on Gaza and to promote a peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause in line with its historic role in promoting peace in the Middle East.
In New York, Abdelatty is set to join other Arab foreign ministers for a scheduled consultation on the message and the demands that they need to put across to the international community, especially the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, with regard to growing concerns for regional stability in view of the escalating scope of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its aggression against the Palestinian people.
“We highly welcome the expected announcements of several countries to recognise Palestine during the General Assembly. This is a significant, historic step, and one that reflects the growing global support for the Palestinian cause,” he said.
Meanwhile, according to Egyptian sources, a significant part of the message was spelled out in the communiqué adopted by the member states of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) after the extraordinary summit that convened in the Qatari capital Doha on Monday in response to the Israeli attack on Qatar on 9 September.
The attack was intended to kill top Hamas leaders meeting to consider an amended US proposal for a ceasefire to the almost two-year Israeli war on Gaza.
The key demands of the communiqué, especially those included in two articles added at the last minute following consultations among the over 50 participating states, are about holding Israel, especially Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accountable for violations of international law and international humanitarian law and putting pressure on him to refrain from further acts against Arab states, particularly those in proximity to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Addressing the Doha Summit, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said that “the message [of this summit] says ‘enough of the silence’ in response to the acts of thuggery by this rogue state, which has been wreaking havoc, destruction, killing, and starvation within the region.”
Sources on the sidelines of the Doha Summit said that there was apprehension about whether or not Israel will change course.
“If Netanyahu keeps up the same pace of escalating tension, and not just in the [Occupied] Palestinian Territories, and if he does what he and his minister of defence say that they will do in terms of targeting to kill Hamas leaders in the Arab countries, then regional stability is at a serious risk,” said one of the sources.
He added that judging by “the way things are unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank and by the things that Netanyahu has been saying this week, there seems to be a closing window on the chances of regional stability.”
On Tuesday, during a joint press conference with visiting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Netanyahu said that he would not exclude possible attacks similar to that on Doha to target Hamas leaders.
Netanyahu spoke as the Arab Summit was convening in Doha, where the leaders of countries with peace treaties with Israel used atypical language to denounce the Israeli prime minister.
“I warn that Israel’s uncontrolled behaviour will exacerbate the conflict and destabilise the region,” Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi said.
Al-Sisi referred in his statement before the summit to Israel as “the enemy”. He also qualified the Israeli attack on Hamas targets in Doha earlier this month as an attack on Arab and Islamic interests and a reflection of the changing perspective of “the enemy” towards these nations.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “we are dealing with a terrorist mindset that thrives on chaos and bloodshed and is embodied in a state.”
During his press conference with Netanyahu in Israel, Rubio said that Hamas has only a few days left to accept the US proposal that was on the table the day the Hamas leaders escaped the Israeli military raid on Doha.
In Doha for high-level talks on Tuesday, following his visit to Israel, Rubio said that the US wants Doha to stay engaged with the mediation between Hamas and Israel. “We think Qatar can play a very key role in that,” he said.
In press statements in Washington on Monday evening, US President Donald Trump said that Israel would not attack Doha again.
However, Cairo-based foreign diplomats said that it would be unwise to exclude anything at this point. “Netanyahu knows very well that Trump is not [former US president Barack] Obama and that he has nothing to lose by acting against the will of Trump,” said one European diplomat.
He added that “at the same time Trump knows that Qatar and the other [Arab] Gulf states are not going to shake their deep and strategic alliance with Washington over anything that relates to Hamas.”
Informed sources, both Egyptian and foreign, said during the days following the 9 September attack that consultations between the Qatari leadership and its counterparts in the other five members of the Gulf Cooperation Council included appeals for Doha to ask Hamas leaders to find another venue where they would be safer.
The same sources said that while Qatar might agree to a temporary arrangement with regard to an emergency eviction of Hamas leaders to a safer destination until it secures solid guarantees that Israel will not attempt to hit Doha again, it would not want to fully forgo the political influence it has gained by hosting them.
On the ground, the Israeli army has been escalating its violence against civilians in Gaza City, with a massive ground offensive, an eviction that was started last week to move Palestinian residents further south, and the intended completion of Israeli military control of most of Gaza.
During the war that started on 7 October 2023, the Palestinian authorities in Gaza have so far counted over 60,000 civilians killed by the Israeli war, mostly women and children.
Over 100,000 civilians have sustained grave and crippling injuries. Over 80 per cent of the houses and infrastructure in the Strip has been destroyed.
On Tuesday, a UN commission of inquiry said that Israel has commissioned genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. The report of the commission said Israel had carried out four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law since the beginning of the war.
According to the report, these acts included killing Gazans, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the Gaza population, and imposing measures to prevent births in Gaza.
Last month, the UN said there was mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation as well as disease in Gaza as a result of the war.
However, in July experts at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said that a final verdict on the case against Israel initiated by South Africa at the court in December 2023 was unlikely to be concluded prior to 2027 at the earliest.
This came after the ICJ granted Israel a six-month extension to present evidence against the charges put by South Africa.
A UN humanitarian official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that there is a sense of frustration in the UN over the situation in Gaza and the inability of the international community to put a cap on the escalating war and its impact on the Gazans.
He added that the real issue now is not whether Israel will stop the war “because there is no evidence that it will.”
“The question now is where will the Palestinians go,” he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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