Politics

Egypt wants to help shape Gaza's future, but not by taking in Palestinians

Cairo wants to show Trump it is a player worth consulting when it comes to Mideast geopolitics, but his comment that Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians will not be well-received

AFP

This aerial photo shows displaced Gazans gathering in an area in Nuseirat on January 26, 2025, being prevented by Israel from returning to their homes in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Egypt wants to help shape Gaza's future, but not by taking in Palestinians

Amr Emam

last update on 27 Jan 2025

US President Donald Trump's suggestion that Egypt and Jordan take in a portion of Gaza's Palestinians could set the tone in relations between Cairo and Washington for the next four years.

Trump said the shifting of Palestinians out of Gaza could be "temporary or long term", but either way, Egypt looks poised to oppose the move. When similar calls were made for Egypt to take in Palestinians at the beginning of October 2023, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was clear: They should move to the Negev desert (inside Israel) until Netanyahu finishes 'eradicating Hamas'.

But after 15 months of Israel's devastating war on Gaza, its stated goal of total victory has not been met. Israel, which has lost around 900 soldiers since it launched its retaliation on 8 October 2023, has achieved none of its war goals. True, it has scattered and reduced Hamas, but Hamas is not gone. If reports are to be believed, the group is already busy regrouping and rebuilding. By former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's own admission, Israel’s assault has created as many Hamas members as it’s killed.

The Israeli economy has also taken a hit. War has cost Israel tens of billions of dollars, from military expenses and lost productivity to delayed investment and reduced tourism. Again, it will take months to rebound.

As for Palestinians, they long looked to Hamas as their best bet. Whether they still do is questionable. Gaza lies in ruins. Its rebuilding will take years, if not decades.

Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP — People erect tents amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings as displaced Palestinians return to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip in Jabalia on January 23, 2025, during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached.

After the last Israeli bombardment in 2014, Qatar agreed to help pay for Gaza’s rebuilding, spending billions of dollars doing so. The buildings that it paid for have been reduced to rubble. Who in the international community would want to repeat that? Not only is compensation unlikely, but so, too, is reconstruction.

Israeli intentions

Together with other mediators, Egypt has sought to arrange a ceasefire involving a hostage/prisoner swap agreement. This finally came into effect on 19 January 2025. A factor in Cairo’s motivation was a desire to protect its territory against the prospect of displaced Palestinians flooding in. Even though Israel officially denies that it ever had any plans for that scenario, Israeli actions suggest otherwise.

By decimating northern Gaza, building military infrastructure throughout, and squeezing Gaza's two million people into a sliver of land near the Egyptian border, Israel's intentions seem to be for a permanent presence in the Strip and possibly even annexation of it.

Israeli settlement proponents and Israel's far-right cabinet ministers have indeed spoken openly about the need to make Palestinians leave. To make this happen, Israel has made sure to make Gaza unliveable.

Trump said the shifting of Palestinians out of Gaza could be "temporary or long term", but either way, Egypt looks poised to oppose the move

Against displacement

Egypt watched all this with worry, having drawn a red line at the prospect of displaced Palestinians entering Egypt through their shared 12km border. The Egyptian military has been keen to prevent such a scenario.

The displacement of Gaza's population into Sinai would have upended decades of peace between Egypt and Israel, the first such peace between Israel and an Arab country. If Palestinians were displaced into Sinai, they would inevitably continue their struggle against Israel from there.

The ceasefire agreement initially put the displacement scenario on hold, which was a relief for Cairo and for the Egyptian troops deployed along the border, faced with the prospect of hundreds of thousands of scared Palestinians crossing into Sinai to escape death and hunger. However, Trump's recent comments have cast a cloud of doubt over the future of Gaza—and possibly Egypt and Jordan.

Egypt has long argued against the displacement of Gaza's Palestinians into its territory. One of these arguments is that, by the same logic, the Palestinians of the West Bank could just as easily be displaced into Jordan—another thing Israel's far-right politicians have long dreamt of.

Israel is staunchly opposed to any Palestinian state and therefore opposes the prospect of the Palestinian Authority (PA) taking over administrative and security affairs in the Strip because it knows this would be a step on the road to statehood.

REUTERS / Dawoud Abu Alkas — Hamas militants parade before they hand over hostages who had been held in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to the Red Cross as part of a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, January 25, 2025.

The future of Hamas

The ceasefire is framed in such a way as to allow a Hamas presence. The group will hand over 33 Israeli hostages over 42 days. Then it will negotiate over the release of remaining hostages in subsequent phases. So, at least until all the hostages are released, they retain some control.

However, what will happen to Hamas after it releases all the hostages? Its political future is uncertain in both Gaza and the West Bank. Having invited such devastation by its actions, its popularity has plummeted, and with Iran and Hezbollah still reeling, its external support has all but dried up.

This is all good news for Egypt. Cairo distrusts Hamas, which has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that was overthrown by the Egyptian army then led by current president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Nonetheless, Egypt keeps its channels of communication with Hamas open, and Hamas does likewise—Sinai is Gaza's only non-Israeli gateway to the outside world. But if Hamas is kicked out of the Strip, this will be a security 'gain' for Egypt, which has its own Islamist terrorists to contend with.

Egypt sees the ceasefire in Gaza as an opportune time to prove itself useful to US President Donald Trump

Perceptions of peace

Most right-wing Israeli politicians see the ceasefire as a defeat, which makes a resumption of fighting probable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was reluctant to approve any deal that would end Israel's war in Gaza, knows that withdrawing from the Strip could collapse his governing coalition.

Egypt, which helped broker the deal, was once a regional powerhouse but has since been marginalised. Heavily indebted, it has grappled with a multitude of economic, political, and security problems since 2011, haunted by the prospect of a return to power by political Islamists.

To some extent, war in Gaza was a blessing for Cairo, offering it the opportunity to play a role and influence regional events, partly through the negotiations and partly by controlling the principal point for the entry for humanitarian aid.

For Egyptian authorities, this is an opportune time to prove useful, given that Donald Trump has just returned to the White House. If the ceasefire deal holds, Cairo will see itself as a capital worth consulting, not least over the future of the Gaza Strip.

+ / -