Al-Sisi, Macron and King Abdullah all unequivocally condemned Israel’s flagrant breach of the ceasefire agreement reached in late January. Israel has not only been killing Palestinians on a massive scale since resuming its arbitrary bombing campaign on 18 March, it has also adopted the deliberate policy of starving more than two million human beings by blocking aid and much needed fuel from entering Gaza.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was not hiding Israel’s intentions or plans. By killing more than 1500 Palestinians in three weeks, including 500 children and more than 100 women, Israel is seeking to force Hamas to accept its terms for a new deal. Ironically, after disregarding the original deal mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, not just Hamas but all parties involved in seeking an end to the war in Gaza might ask why a new Israeli proposal should be trusted or taken seriously.

Netanyahu, who is obviously acting with a green light from Washington, said that after bringing Hamas into submission, and forcing it to release the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, the group should be disarmed and its leaders deported to other countries. Afterwards, Gaza would not be handed to the Palestinian Authority or become part of a future Palestinian state; instead, Israel would militarily control the Strip and be responsible for its overall security.

After re-occupying Gaza, Netanyahu would start implementing US President Donald Trump’s proposal to “voluntarily” remove Palestinians from their homeland and send them to nearby countries, namely Egypt and Jordan, or to any country in the world ready to accept them.

Having openly announced his intentions, and ordered his newly-appointed chief of staff to carry out some of the worst massacres the world has seen in modern history, including the brutal killing — most likely execution — of 15 ambulance and rescue workers, Netanyahu left Egypt no option but to renew its effort to stop the bloodshed and disregard for human life.     

In his joint news conference with Macron on Monday, President Al-Sisi said that considering the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, it was a paramount imperative to immediately return to the original ceasefire deal, and allow unfettered access to desperately-needed humanitarian aid and relief.

Without taking those urgent steps, Netanyahu should know it will not be possible to guarantee the release of the remaining living Israeli hostages. Before January’s ceasefire, the Israeli army killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians and injured more than 100,000. Yet, all those massacres and war crimes did not guarantee the release of Israeli hostages, and only negotiations and a stable ceasefire deal led to bringing the vast majority of them back safely to their families.

The assumption that continuing the genocide war and military pressure would lead to the release of hostages has been proved false, and there is no reason to assume otherwise following the violation of the ceasefire deal on 18 March. Such relentless bombing and intentional starvation of Palestinians will most probably lead to the killing of the remaining Israeli hostages. That has been the key fear of families of those hostages who have been protesting non-stop in all major Israeli cities, demanding an end of this aimless war.

Equally important during Macron’s visit to Egypt and the talks he held with Al-Sisi and King Abdullah was the affirmation by the three leaders that they categorically rejected any calls for the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land. Instead, they all renewed their support for the Egyptian plan, backed by Arab, Islamic and European nations, to recover and reconstruct the Gaza Strip while ensuring that no Palestinians would be forced out of their homeland.

In this framework, the three leaders agreed on the urgent need to coordinate joint endeavors with respect to the conference on the reconstruction of Gaza, which Egypt intends to convene promptly upon bringing this genocidal war to an end. During a visit on Tuesday to the city of Al-Arish where hundreds of trucks have been waiting for weeks to bring much needed supplies to Gaza, President Macron was briefed on Egypt’s diligent efforts to mobilise humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.  

Meanwhile, President Al-Sisi stressed that realising stability and enduring peace in the Middle East will remain an elusive objective in the absence of a just and comprehensive settlement to the Palestinian issue, and as long as the Palestinian people relentlessly suffer the ravages of devastating wars that deplete their resources and deprive their coming generations of their right even to hope for a more secure and stable future.

For this reason, since the beginning of the Israeli war on 8 October, 2023, Egypt has focused not just on ending the bloodshed, but also on ways to launch a credible political initiative to revive the peace process and establish an independent Palestinian state along the 4 June, 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The disastrous, inhumane situation in Gaza and the insane loss of Palestinian lives will never achieve victory for Israel. Instead, this indifference to Palestinians’ rights and disregard for their humanity will only turn Israel into a pariah state worldwide, in a manner not different from apartheid South Africa.

Short-term military successes trumpeted by Netanyahu and his extremist ministers will continue to haunt Israel forever, and worldwide demonstrations have already started gaining steam again to protest turning Gaza into a concentration camp with total disregard for human lives. Israel must be ready for a longer list of suspected war criminals who will sooner or later face justice. The alternative is to recognise that illegal occupation of Palestinian land is no path to peace, but a guaranteed prescription to endless wars and instability that will harm Israel, the region and the rest of the world.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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