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Despite Hostile Public, Egypt Won’t Destroy Israel Relations
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office.
JNS.org – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is confronting a complex array of challenges along the country’s northeastern border with Gaza.
With approximately 1.4 million Palestinians amassed in Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, el-Sisi is engaged in negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and simultaneously attempting to keep diplomatic ties with Israel intact.
However, amid these diplomatic efforts, he faces domestic issues compounded by strong anti-Israel sentiment among the Egyptian public, who perceive him as being too closely aligned with the United States and Israel.
Speculation has arisen regarding the potential dissolution of Egypt’s 45-year peace treaty with Israel in the event of an Israel Defense Forces incursion into Rafah. Israel asserts that the city serves as a stronghold for the last four Hamas battalions, which must be eliminated in order to win the war.
However, according to Jacob Olidort, director of research at the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, it is “unlikely” Egypt would end its peace treaty with Israel if the IDF enters Rafah.
“Although this appeared to be a real concern following el-Sisi’s remarks several weeks ago, the [Egyptian] foreign minister’s statements in recent days made it clear that Egypt’s cancellation of its peace treaty with Israel is highly unlikely,” he told JNS.
Speaking at a press conference in Slovenia on Feb. 12, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, “There is a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, which has been in effect for the past 40 years and will continue to be,” according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Egypt would adhere to the 1979 peace treaty as long as it remains reciprocal, he said, adding, “Therefore, I will rule out any comments that have been made on this matter.”
Olidort emphasized that canceling the treaty “would mean ending the deep cooperation between the Egyptian and Israeli militaries in fighting Islamic State in the Sinai, as well as U.S. military assistance.”
Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, believes el-Sisi has greater worries and “will not compound his country’s woes unless he absolutely has to.”
In Lerman’s view, el-Sisi would not take the extraordinary step of cutting ties with Israel unless Israel expelled the Palestinians to Sinai or some other action, military or otherwise, that would lead to a massive breach of the fences.
According to Lerman, this is something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “committed to avoid.”
Haisam Hassanein, an adjunct fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS he doesn’t believe Israel and Egypt would get into a conflict or cancel the peace treaty because of Hamas.
However, he said, Egypt “worries about a spillover to its territory, which could liquidate the Palestinian issue or open the door for Hamas and jihadi operatives to infiltrate its border by posing as refugees.”
“Previous bloody clashes between Palestinian militias in their host nations, such as Lebanon and Jordan, don’t inspire confidence in Cairo,” he added. Moreover, “If they attack Israel from Sinai, it could strain Egypt-Israel relations,” he noted.
This concern over a spillover has reportedly prompted Egypt to begin building a containment area for Palestinian refugees in Northern Sinai on the Gaza border as a precaution.
In addition to Israel’s war against Hamas, Egypt is currently dealing with a multitude of other issues. As Lerman recently wrote, “the Egyptian pound is in free fall; investors and business leaders are leaving; essentials are in short supply; tourism is in decline; and now, attacks on Red Sea shipping have led to a plunge in Suez Canal income, and the failure of talks with Ethiopia on the filling of the Renaissance Dam has cast a shadow on Egypt’s vital water supply.”
In addition, a civil war is raging in neighboring Sudan and Libya remains unstable.
All this places Egypt in a precarious position, and the need to demonstrate it is siding with the Palestinians seemingly clashes with its need to cooperate with Israel.
Olidort noted however that Egyptian public opinion is important, as are the “optics of how the government appears in relation to Israel and its operation in Gaza.”
He said Egypt’s position with regard to the Palestinians in Gaza “has less to do with shouldering the economic burden of caring for them or the security burden of fighting Hamas—there is, rest assured, no love lost between the Sisi government and Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood—and a great deal to do with the public opinion pressure to not appear to side with either Israel or, militarily, with the United States.”
Egypt’s domestic challenges, and particularly its mounting economic woes, are very real, said Olidort. “But there is a clear recognition that compromising its regional reputation could make matters worse,” he added.
According to Olidort, the concerns of a spillover from Gaza as the IDF turns its focus on Rafah “are just as much about optics as about security; just as threatening, in the Egyptian view, as a porous border is the political blowback caused by a public narrative that Egypt is helping Israel push Palestinians from their land.”
At the same time, according to Lerman, Israel is “eager to preserve a highly valuable strategic relationship, even if the Egyptian public domain is still quite poisonous.”
As Israel moves forward with plans to invade Rafah and root out the Hamas terrorists there, including the group’s leader Yahya Sinwar, much of the international community and media have condemned Israel’s plans.
For instance, the South African government has gone as far as submitting an “urgent request” to the International Court of Justice in The Hague to consider whether Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah constitutes a “further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza.”
In a statement released on Friday, the ICJ declined to take additional measures.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron called on Israel to restrain itself in Rafah. “Many of the people in Rafah have already moved three, four or five times. It is not possible for them to move again,” he said on Tuesday. “That is why it is so important that the Israelis stop and think before going ahead with any operations in Rafah.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing back against these warnings, telling ABC News in an interview on Sunday: “Those who say that under no circumstances should we enter Rafah are basically saying lose the war.”
“Victory is within reach. We’re going to do it. We’re going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, which is the last bastion, but we’re going to do it,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s position has been that only military pressure will secure the hostages’ release.
The daring commando operation in Rafah earlier this week that saw the rescue of Israeli hostages Fernando Simon Marman and Norberto Louis Har from Rafah only strengthens this position.
Luckily for Israel, Hamas’s affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, el-Sisi’s sworn enemies, means he needs to support Israel in its fight to defeat Hamas.
“At the end of the day, Egypt has as much an interest in the defeat of rabid Islamism as we do,” said Lerman.
The post Despite Hostile Public, Egypt Won’t Destroy Israel Relations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah to Bury Long-Time Terrorist Leader Nasrallah in Mass Funeral in Lebanon
People gather at a site damaged by Israeli airstrike that killed Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a commemoration ceremony in Beirut southern suburbs, Lebanon, Nov. 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Hezbollah will bury its former leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in a mass funeral aimed at showing political strength after the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group emerged badly weakened from last year’s war.
Nasrallah was killed on Sept. 27 in an Israeli airstrike as he met commanders in a bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stunning blow in the early phase of an Israeli offensive that has left the Islamist group a shadow of its former self.
Revered by Hezbollah supporters, Nasrallah led the Shi’ite Muslim group through decades of conflict with Israel, overseeing its transformation into a military force with regional sway and becoming one of the most prominent Arab figures in generations.
The funeral in Beirut’s southern suburbs will also honor Hashem Safieddine, who led Hezbollah for one week after Nasrallah’s death before he was also killed by Israel, underlining how deeply Israeli intelligence had penetrated the paramilitary group. He will be buried in the south on Monday.
“The funeral is a launchpad for the next phase. A great funeral that draws hundreds of thousands is a way of telling everyone that Hezbollah still exists, that it is still the main Shi’ite actor in Lebanon,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
Israel killed thousands of Hezbollah fighters and inflicted huge destruction in Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon where its supporters live. The impact on Hezbollah was compounded by the ousting of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, severing the supply route to Iran.
Its weakened stature has been reflected in Lebanon’s post-war politics, with the group unable to impose its will in the formation of a new government and language legitimizing its arsenal omitted from the new cabinet’s policy statement.
Sheikh Sadeq al-Nabulsi, a cleric close to Hezbollah, said adversaries in Lebanon and abroad believed the group had been defeated, but the funeral would be a message that this was not the case. It would be a “battle to prove Hezbollah’s existence.”
The ceremony will be held at Lebanon’s biggest sports arena – Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium on the outskirts of the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs.
Nasrallah will then be buried at a dedicated site nearby.
Nasrallah’s death was a huge blow to Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards established Hezbollah in 1982. It was also a blow to allied Shi’ite militias across the region, which also held him high regard.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will attend, an Iranian official said. An Iraqi delegation including senior Shi’ite politicians and militia commanders will fly to Beirut for the funeral on a presidential plane, two Iraqi lawmakers said. Yemen’s Houthis will send a senior delegation led by the Grand Mufti, Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported.
Iraqi Airways has added flights to Beirut to cope with extra demand from Iraqis who want to travel to Beirut for the funeral, a spokesperson for the Iraqi transportation ministry said.
Supporters remember him for standing up to Israel and defying the United States. To his foes, he was head of an internationally designated terrorist organization and a proxy for Iran’s Shi’ite Islamist theocracy in its bid for influence in the Middle East.
After he was killed, Nasrallah was buried temporarily next to his son, Hadi, who died fighting for Hezbollah in 1997.
His official funeral was scheduled to allow time for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon under the terms of a US-backed ceasefire which ended last year’s war.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from the south, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area.
The conflict spiraled after Hezbollah opened fire in support of its Palestinian terrorist ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war, on Oct. 8, 2023.
The post Hezbollah to Bury Long-Time Terrorist Leader Nasrallah in Mass Funeral in Lebanon first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says It Is Investigating Possible Error Over Hostage Body as Israel Decries Terror Group’s ‘Cruelty’
Palestinian terrorists and members of the Red Cross gather near vehicles on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas said on Friday it was investigating a possible error in identifying human remains handed to Israel under a ceasefire deal as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened retaliation for failing to release the body of hostage Shiri Bibas.
Hamas was due to hand over the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two sons Kfir and Ariel on Thursday, along with the remains of a fourth hostage under the ceasefire deal that has halted fighting in Gaza since last month.
Four bodies were delivered and the identities of the Bibas boys and the other hostage, Oded Lifshitz, were confirmed.
But Israeli specialists said the fourth body was that of an unidentified woman and not Bibas, who was kidnapped along with her sons and her husband, Yarden, during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said “unfortunate mistakes” could occur, especially as Israeli bombing had mixed the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians, thousands of whom were still buried in the rubble.
“We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign,” he said in a statement.
Hamas said separately that it would investigate the Israeli assertions and announce the results.
The failure to hand over the body and the staged public handover of the four coffins on Thursday, caused outrage in Israel and drew a threat of retaliation from Netanyahu.
“The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds. Not only did they kidnap the father, Yarden Bibas, the young mother, Shiri, and their two small babies. In an unspeakably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri to her little children, the little angels, and they put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages – both living and dead – and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he continued, adding that “God will avenge [the deceased hostages’] blood.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the children and their mother had been killed in an Israeli air strike and Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Netanyahu “bears full responsibility for killing her and her children.”
But the Israeli military said intelligence assessments and forensic analysis of the bodies of the Bibas children indicated that they were deliberately killed by their captors. Chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the boys were killed by the terrorists “with their bare hands,” but gave no details.
Netanyahu gave no details of a possible Israeli response, but the incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire agreement reached with US backing and with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators last month.
SATURDAY EXCHANGE
Six living hostages are due for release on Saturday in exchange for 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, according to Hamas, and the start of negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire is expected in the coming days.
“Hamas must return the hostages as agreed in the ceasefire – the living and the deceased,” Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said in a statement on social media platform X. “They have to bring Shiri back, and they have to release the 6 living hostages expected tomorrow.”
Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had been officially informed of the names of the six hostages to be released, which Hamas sources said was expected at around 8.30 am (0630 GMT).
As the tension over the Gaza ceasefire rose, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to intensify operations in another Palestinian territory, the West Bank, after a number of explosions blew up buses standing empty in their depots near Tel Aviv.
No casualties were reported but the explosions were a reminder of the campaign of suicide attacks on public transport that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
‘THEY MAKE A JOKE OF US’
Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of ceasefire violations, with Hamas threatening to delay the release of hostages over what it said was Israel‘s refusal to allow housing materials and other aid into Gaza, a charge Israel denied.
“It’s like they make a joke of us,” said 75-year-old Ilana Caspi. “We are so in grief and this is even more, it’s like you make a punch again, another one and another one, it’s really terrible.”
The Red Cross told Reuters it was “concerned and unsatisfied” by the fact that the handover of the bodies had not been conducted privately and in a dignified manner.
One of the main groups representing hostage families said they were “horrified and devastated” by the news that Shiri Bibas’ body had not been returned but called for the ceasefire to continue to bring back all the 70 hostages still in Gaza.
“Save them from this nightmare,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
Despite the outrage over Shiri Bibas, there was no indication that Israel would not take part in talks over a second phase of the ceasefire deal.
The Israel Hayom newspaper reported that Israeli negotiators were considering seeking an extension of the 42-day ceasefire, to delay moving to a second phase, which would involve talks over hard-to-resolve issues including an end to the war and the future of Hamas in Gaza.
The post Hamas Says It Is Investigating Possible Error Over Hostage Body as Israel Decries Terror Group’s ‘Cruelty’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Military Says Hostage Body Released by Hamas Is Not Shiri Bibas or Any Other Captive in Gaza
Ofri Bibas Levy, whose brother Yarden (34) was taken hostage with his wife Shiri (32) and 2 children Kfir (10 months) and Ariel (4), holds with her friend Tal Ulus pictures of them during an interview with Reuters, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas continues, in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 13, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Israeli military said on Friday that one of the bodies released by Hamas did not belong to any of the hostages held in Gaza, accusing the Palestinian terrorist group of violating an already fragile ceasefire.
Two of the bodies were identified as infant Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, while a third body that was supposed to be their mother, Shiri, was found not to match with any hostage and remained unidentified, the military said.
“This is a violation of utmost severity by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is obliged under the agreement to return four deceased hostages,” the military said, in a statement, demanding the return of Shiri and all hostages.
The family of hostage Oded Lifshitz, said in a statement that his body had been formally identified.
Hamas said on Friday it was investigating a possible error in identifying human remains handed to Israel under the ceasefire deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier vowed revenge on Hamas after the group released the remains of what it said were four hostages, including that of Kfir and Ariel, the youngest of those abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Palestinian militants handed over four black coffins in a carefully orchestrated public display as a crowd of Palestinians and dozens of armed Hamas terrorists watched, creating a spectacle which was condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The purported remains of the boys, their mother, and Lifshitz, were handed over under the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached last month with the backing of the United States and the mediation of Qatar and Egypt.
Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by.
“We stand here together, with a broken heart. The sky is also crying with us, and we pray to see better days,” said one woman, who gave her name only as Efrat.
In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, in a public square opposite Israel‘s defense headquarters that has come to be known as Hostages Square.
“Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts — the hearts of an entire nation — lie in tatters,” said President Isaac Herzog.
In a recorded address released after the remains of the hostages were handed over, Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas, saying “the four coffins” obliged Israel to ensure “more than ever” that there was no repeat of the Oct. 7 attack.
“Our loved ones’ blood is shouting at us from the soil and is obliging us to settle the score with the despicable murderers, and we will,” he said.
Over the course of the 16-month-old conflict, Israeli officials have repeatedly asserted that Hamas would be destroyed and the roughly 250 hostages abducted during the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel would be returned home.
During Thursday’s handover, one terrorist stood beside a poster showing coffins wrapped in Israeli flags. It read “The Return of the War = The Return of your Prisoners in Coffins.”
UN chief Guterres condemned “the parading of bodies and displaying of the coffins of the deceased hostages in the manner seen this morning, which is abhorrent and appalling,” his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said.
He said international law required remains to be handed over in a way that ensures “respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families.”
‘SYMBOL’
Kfir Bibas was nine months old when the Bibas family, including their father Yarden, was abducted at Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of a string of communities near Gaza that were overrun by Hamas-led attackers from Gaza.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, but their deaths were not confirmed by Israeli authorities.
“Shiri and the kids became a symbol,” said Yiftach Cohen, of the Nir Oz kibbutz, which lost around a quarter of its residents, either killed or kidnapped, during the assault.
Yarden Bibas was returned alive in an exchange for prisoners this month.
Lifshitz was 83 when he was abducted from Nir Oz, the kibbutz he helped found. His wife, Yocheved, 85 at the time, was seized with him and released two weeks later, along with another woman.
He was a former journalist and in an op-ed in left-leaning Haaretz in January 2019, he listed what he said were Netanyahu’s policy failures.
LIVING HOSTAGES
The handover marked the first return of dead bodies during the current agreement.
The military said that the Bibas children had been murdered in captivity in November 2023 by “terrorists.” The prime minister’s office earlier said that Lifshitz was murdered in captivity by Islamic Jihad, another Iran-backed terrorist group in Gaza.
Chen Kugel, the head of the Israel National Center of Forensic Medicine, later said in a televised statement that Lifshitz had been murdered more than a year ago.
The Hamas-led attack into Israel killed some 1,200 people, and 251 individuals were kidnapped as hostages. Israel‘s subsequent military campaign aimed to free the hostages and dismantle Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.
Thursday’s handover of bodies will be followed by the return of six living hostages on Saturday, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinians, expected to be women and minors detained by Israeli forces in Gaza during the war.
Negotiations for a second phase, expected to cover the return of around 60 remaining hostages, less than half of whom are believed to be alive, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip to allow an end to the war, are expected to begin in the coming days.
The post Israeli Military Says Hostage Body Released by Hamas Is Not Shiri Bibas or Any Other Captive in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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