An emergency meeting is scheduled to be held in the Mediterranean city of Alamein this week to discuss proposals for breaking the deadlock that has affected the transition to the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire agreement signed between Israel and Hamas in October 2025.
Sources said Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian factions will attend the meeting.
Media reports indicated that the meeting comes after Hamas accused Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement and working to undermine the implementation of its first phase.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas and Israel agreed on a ceasefire, as well as a hostage-prisoner exchange, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and an aid surge. Phase two should see the reconstruction and full demilitarisation of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
The meeting also comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced this week that he had instructed the Israeli army to expand its control over the Gaza Strip to 70 per cent, noting that Israeli forces currently control about 60 per cent of the area.
The ceasefire agreement reached during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in October 2025 stipulates the withdrawal of Israeli forces to what is known as the “Yellow Line” and giving Israel control over about 53 per cent of the Gaza Strip.
However, Israel has moved beyond this line, introducing what has become known as the “Orange Line”, an additional restricted area extending west of the “Yellow Line” and estimated to add about an additional 11 per cent of land.
This has raised the percentage of effective Israeli control to more than 60 per cent, according to maps provided by Israel to humanitarian organisations.
The expansion has raised Palestinian fears of a new forced displacement of the population, as it will confine more than two million people in an area of less than 30 per cent of the Gaza Strip, while tensions continue over the implementation of the remaining phases of the ceasefire agreement.
The past few days have witnessed contacts from several international parties related to ongoing mediation efforts in a bid to prevent the negotiation process from failing to present new ideas.
The Palestinian factions were scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with mediators and High Representative of the so-called Gaza Board of Peace Nikolay Mladenov on Wednesday and Thursday this week.
The meetings were slated to be held with the participation of high-level representatives from Egyptian, Qatari, and Turkish mediators, along with delegations from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, with the aim of discussing an approach acceptable to both the Palestinian resistance movements and the Israelis and paving the way for the resumption of negotiations.
Ahead of the meetings, Hamas published a document it said it had sent to Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar regarding the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, saying that this is witnessing escalating Israeli violations resulting in the killing of more than 930 Palestinians since it came into effect on 10 October 2025.
The document, dated 20 May, refers to efforts made by Egypt and other mediators to bring viewpoints closer during two rounds of negotiations in Cairo and Istanbul.
It notes that Israel’s provocative actions, including expanding its aggression, assassinations, and targeting of Palestinians in Gaza, have created a negative environment and strongly affected the course of the negotiations.
The document also criticises Mladenov’s recent briefing to the UN Security Council asking Hamas to accept disarmament and relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. Mladenov blamed Hamas for the lack of progress on the Trump plan, depicting it as the single obstacle in the path of unlocking Gaza’s reconstruction.
In response, Hamas said it is ready to cede control of Gaza and become a member of the transitional administrative government in charge of running the Strip.
It called on Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar to pressure Israel to stop its daily violations of the ceasefire agreement, which are hindering the completion of phase one and the start of phase two.
It said that while consultations were underway to restart the negotiations, Israel carried out an assassination operation against Ezzeddin Al-Haddad and Mohamed Ouda, two commanders of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
Its document said it is fully committed to the implementation of the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement and that Israel is the party disrupting it and deliberately sabotaging the mediators’ efforts.
The satellite news channel Al-Arabiya said Egypt has invited Turkey and Qatar to prepare new proposals that could bridge the gap between what Mladenov is proposing and Hamas’ position.
“Egypt is working hard to address the divide between Mladenov’s proposed ‘roadmap’, which prioritises the collection or control of weapons as a prerequisite for continued negotiations, and Hamas’ insistence on the completion of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement before addressing any other issues,” it said.
Al-Arabiya said Israel’s intention to occupy 70 per cent of Gaza and confine more than two million Palestinians near the border with Egypt is a very dangerous step.
“It is another reason that led Cairo to invite Turkey and Qatar and representatives of the Palestinian factions to a new round of talks in order to seek a way out and restart negotiations over the first and second phases of Trump’s peace plan,” it said.
Said Okasha, an Israeli affairs analyst at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, believes that Netanyahu’s recent statement that Israel is planning to occupy 70 per cent of Gaza has been particularly irritating to Egypt.
Netanyahu’s statement was followed by another statement from Israeli Defence Minister Yisrael Katz about Israel’s moving to implement the “voluntary displacement” of the Palestinians in Gaza “at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner”, he said.
Okasha said Egypt sees the displacement of the Palestinians as “a present and ongoing danger as long as there are no serious moves regarding the implementation of Trump’s peace plan, the state of instability continues, and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip does not begin.”
He added that Egypt is aware that Israel is taking advantage of the world’s preoccupation with the Iran war to tighten its control of Gaza.
“This is not to mention the fact that the difficult living conditions in Gaza, and the international silence, especially from the European Union countries which have the economic tools to pressure Israel to change its policies, also give Israel the opportunity to disrupt Trump’s peace plan in Gaza and seek to deport the Palestinians,” Okasha said.
He added that “the upcoming meeting is an attempt to prevent the collapse of the Gaza peace agreement, to maintain its continuation, and to prevent Tel Aviv from escalating the situation.”
“Hamas must understand the current balance of power and use the new round of talks in Egypt to reach an agreement with Mladenov over the disarmament of its forces and the control of weapons,” he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 June, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
Short link: