Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Saturday appealed to US President Donald Trump to “exert effort and pressure” to achieve a truce in Gaza.
His comments at the Arab summit meeting in Baghdad, which included harsh criticism of Israel and coincided with the resumption of negotiations in Qatar to reach a Gaza truce, according to sources.
They told The National that the negotiations brought together teams from Israel and Hamas, as well as US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
They, however, pointed out that the stakeholders were represented by midlevel officials, suggesting that the possibility of a breakthrough may be distant.
“I call on President Trump in his capacity as a leader who seeks to establish peace to make every effort and exert every pressure to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza as a prelude to the launching of a serious political process in which he plays the role of mediator and sponsor and which leads to a final settlement,” Mr El Sisi said at the Baghdad summit.
This is not the first time that the Egyptian leader had urged Mr Trump to work towards an end to the war in Gaza, followed by negotiations on a settlement of the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict.
But his comments on Saturday took additional significance given the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are facing starvation as a result of Israel's decision more than two months ago to stop the entry of relief aid.
His comments also follow Israel's announcement earlier this week that it was launching the “initial stages” of another Gaza operation, which has claimed dozens of lives since Friday, according to the health authorities in Gaza.
Trump's tour
They come a day after Mr Trump wrapped up a milestone regional tour of the Middle East in which he said “good things” would come to Gaza within the next month and that he wanted to “help out” Palestinians as he acknowledged that “a lot of people are starving in Gaza”.
Mr El Sisi made no mention in his Saturday comments of the proposal first made by Mr Trump in January that he would like Gaza's 2.3 million residents to resettle away from the enclave, chiefly in Egypt and Jordan, before the US takes over the coastal strip and turns it into a resort.
Egypt has rejected the proposal, arguing that, if implemented, it would hollow out the Palestinian cause and pose a serious threat to its national security. Its position has led to tension with the Trump administration, with Mr El Sisi cancelling a trip to Washington that, according to sources at the time, had been due in February.
Mr Trump's tour took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Egypt and US have been close allies for close to 50 years, with the most populous Arab nation receiving billions of dollars in military and economic aid over the decades. While the pro-government media in Egypt has been sharply critical of Mr Trump's Gaza proposal, Mr El Sisi's public pronouncements on the issue have been carefully measured, consistently stating his faith that the American President has what it takes to bring peace to the region.
However, his comments on Israel, were by far the most scathing to date.
The Palestinians in Gaza, he said, were subjected to “genocide” by Israel, with which Egypt signed a US-sponsored peace treaty in 1979.
“The strip has been subjected to a large-scale destruction operation designed to make it unfit for habitation in a bid to force residents to leave to escape the horrors of war,” he said.
“Israel's war machine,” he added, “did not leave a building standing, showed no mercy to the children or the elderly and used starvation and the scarcity of health services as a weapon”.
Relations between Egypt and Israel – which fought each other in four full-fledged wars between 1948 and 1973 – have been fraught with tension since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. Relations soured further when Israel in May 2024 captured a narrow strip that runs the entire length of the Egypt-Gaza border on the Palestinian side.
Israel has, at the same time, taken over the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only entry and exit point for the territory that is not controlled by Israel.
Egypt reacted angrily to the Israeli move, declaring it was joining South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice which accuses Israel of genocide. It has also, according to media reports, declined to send a new ambassador to Israel or accept Israel's new head of mission in Egypt.
