No one is satisfied with Egypt’s role in Gaza

THE famine in Gaza was created by Israel, which has barred or limited deliveries of food since March. Rather than admit their culpability, though, Israel’s defenders have spent weeks looking for someone else to blame. A favoured talking point is that Egypt could ease Gaza’s misery if it simply allowed more aid into the territory. “Gaza has a border with Egypt,” Eylon Levy, a former government spokesman, wrote on X, a social-media site. “This simple fact seems to evade most people who pretend to care about humanitarian access to Gaza.”

Mr Levy ignored a few simple facts of his own. Since the start of the war, Israel has insisted on screening any aid that enters Gaza from Egypt. Lorries idle for weeks in Rafah, an Egyptian border town, before they are allowed to enter. And though Egypt does border on Gaza, the Palestinians do not control their side of it. The Israeli army seized it in May 2024.

The accusations are ironic. Egypt has worked with Israel to restrict the flow of aid into Gaza, only to be criticised by Israel for restricting that same flow.

Egypt is the most populous Arab country and was the first to recognise Israel. It is the only one to border Gaza. It ought to have a central role in trying to end the war, deliver aid and plan for reconstruction. Yet it has struggled to do so. Many Egyptians are furious that their president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, seems so passive—but some of the reasons are beyond his control.

Start with the ceasefire negotiations. Egypt has at times tried to wrest them away from Qatar, the tiny Gulf sheikhdom that has long harboured leaders of Hamas. The two are rivals: though relations have improved in recent years, Mr Sisi has not forgotten Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood-led government he deposed in a coup in 2013.

When Hamas agreed in August to a 60-day truce—after months of insisting on a permanent one—it did so in Cairo, not Qatar. Diplomats say the about-face was partly due to Egyptian pressure (the desperate conditions in Gaza were also a factor). “They made it clear that Hamas could not get a better deal,” says one Arab diplomat.

Still, that deal would pause the war, not end it. Egypt can warn Hamas that Gaza will not be rebuilt if it remains in charge, but it cannot compel the group’s recalcitrant leaders to disarm and cede power, which Israel says is a prerequisite for a lasting peace. Nor can it convince Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to risk his coalition by agreeing to end the war.

A second obstacle is financial. Last year the United Arab Emirates sent $678m-worth of aid to Gaza. It was the largest single contributor, accounting for 19% of aid tracked by the UN. Egypt, by contrast, has served more as a facilitator than a donor: with its crushing public debt (87% of GDP), it cannot match the Gulf states’ largesse.

In March Egypt convinced Arab leaders to endorse its plan for rebuilding Gaza. Parts of the scheme are unrealistic: it envisions clearing 53m tonnes of rubble in just two years, for example. Still, it was the first serious attempt to plan for Gaza’s post-war future. Yet here too, Egypt may find itself relegated to a supporting role. Its engineers may be eager to help rebuild Gaza. Someone else will have to pay for it.

Some Egyptians want their government to be more forceful—to send aid to Gaza without Israeli inspections, for a start. Egypt says it cannot. Agreements with Israel and the Palestinian Authority tie Egypt into the Israeli screening regime. Mr Sisi no doubt worries that a tougher stance towards Israel would upset his Western backers, particularly Donald Trump.

Opening the border would also exacerbate Egypt’s own security concerns. Mr Sisi would like the Rafah crossing to be open, but only in one direction. Egypt has taken in more than 100,000 Gazans, many of whom paid enormous fees to cross the border. It fears that a chaotic border would allow many more to enter—Hamas militants among them. It also worries about being saddled with a long-term refugee crisis (Egypt already hosts around 1m people displaced from other conflicts).

It is an unenviable position. Egypt has offered haven to some Gazans, facilitated the delivery of 550,000 tonnes of aid and helped to implement truces and hostage deals. That is far more than most Arab states have done for Gaza. But it is not enough to satisfy many Egyptians, who are incensed that the war continues—nor, it seems, to satisfy critics in Israel. ■