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Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty was holding a series of talks with Arab foreign ministers on Monday, a day before a key Arab summit on Gaza that is expected to produce a united stance against US President Donald Trump's proposals for Gaza's future and adopt a counter plan for the enclave's reconstruction.
Mr Abdelatty is meeting the foreign ministers of Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Tunisia, Mauritania and Bahrain to discuss the final preparations for the summit. He is also meeting Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, who is also foreign minister, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
Tuesday's emergency Arab summit was called by Palestine. It should in theory take place in Bahrain, the current chair of the Arab League, but Egypt has said the venue was moved to Cairo after consultations with Manama and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
In an early sign of Arab discord, the official Algerian news agency said President Abdelmadjid Tebboune will stay away from the summit. According to a source quoted by the agency, the decision was due to the “failings and omissions” that characterised preparations for the summit. Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf will attend in place of Mr Tebboune, it added.
“That course has been monopolised by a small and narrow group of Arab states that alone worked on the resolutions of the summit without a minimum of co-ordination with the rest of Arab nations, all of which are just as concerned with the Palestinian cause,” the agency said without elaborating. “The president was offended by this work method that included some nations and excluded others as if championing the Palestinian cause has become the exclusive domain of only some.”
Sources have said Egypt wanted the Arab League's 22 member states to be represented in Tuesday's summit at the highest level possible to add weight to the outcome of the gathering. It was not immediately clear how successful Egypt's efforts have been.
The sources added that there was hope a united Arab stance against Mr Trump's proposals to relocate Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan before developing the coastal enclave could persuade the American leader to abandon his ambitions. Mr Trump's proposals have been globally condemned and labelled as ethnic cleansing by international rights groups.
During the meetings, Mr Abdelatty called for "moving forward with early recovery projects" in Gaza without displacing Palestinians, an Egyptian foreign ministry statement said.
The genesis of the Arab reconstruction plan expected to be adopted by the summit is rooted in a blueprint presented by Egypt and which envisions rebuilding Gaza while keeping its residents in safe zones, not relocating them outside the territory. The UN estimates Gaza's reconstruction will cost about $50 billion.
The flurry of diplomatic contacts in the Egyptian capital come after the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US, which came into effect on January 19. The first phase also saw the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for about 2,000 Palestinians that had been incarcerated by Israel.
Under the deal, negotiations on the second phase were supposed to start early last month, but did not take place despite Hamas's repeated pleas that they should commence. The second phase provides for agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent truce and the release of the remaining 59 hostages still held by Hamas in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Early on Sunday, Israel announced a truce extension until mid-April that it said US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed and suspended the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Hamas rejected the proposal, saying it wanted a transition to the deal's second phase.
With uncertainty looming over the fate of the truce, Israeli and Palestinian sources reported Israeli military strikes in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip that, according to the Palestinian authorities in the enclave, killed four people.
The sources said on Monday that failure to engage in negotiations on the important second phase and Hamas's refusal to extend the first one undermined efforts to win regional and international support for a regional reconstruction plan. Egypt is planning to host an international conference of donors to secure pledges for financing the reconstruction of Gaza, but has yet to set a date.
“There can be no pledges of funds for the reconstruction of a place that's still at war or where the risk of one exists. We maybe at a place now that Israel wanted us to be when it decided not to enter negotiations on the second phase,” said one of the sources.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government have welcomed Mr Trump's proposals to turn Gaza into the “riviera of the Middle East” and taken some steps to help its implementation.
The Gaza war was caused by a Hamas-led deadly attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed about 1,200. Israel's military response devastated the Gaza Strip, killing more than 48,300 and injuring more than twice that number, according to authorities in the enclave. The Israeli offensive also displaced the majority of Gaza's inhabitants and razed to rubble large built-up areas.
