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By Adam Turner
ZOA Government Relations Deputy Director
(April 1, 2025 / JNS) Egypt released its “fantasy” plan to rebuild Gaza to international approval, but without modification to remove Hamas from Gaza, the plan is dead on arrival. It appears to be a desperate attempt to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Yet Egyptian President Fattah Abdel el-Sisi launched a behind-the-scenes diplomatic blitz to try to head off the Trump plan, and has refused Trump’s request to take in Palestinian Arabs, despite their close ethnic connection to Egyptians. (Even Hamas has admitted that half of all Palestinian Arabs are descended from Egyptians.) El-Sisi even went so far as to cancel a planned meeting with Trump in Washington, D.C.
With their actions, the Egyptians are showing, once again, that they have no real interest in supporting their key ally, the United States, even though, year after year, the United States hands more than $1.4 billion in foreign aid to Egypt, most of it in military aid. Over the years, the United States has provided Egypt with more than $100 billion in today’s dollars.
But there are other examples worth mentioning.
Egypt allowed the U.S.-designated terror group Hamas to build up its forces in the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This is even though Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which el-Sisi fought against, and Egypt is supposedly at peace with Israel. Egypt allowed more than 200 smuggling tunnels to be dug into Rafah, with an opening on the Egyptian side of the border that allowed Hamas to smuggle men, money, arms and equipment into Gaza. Egypt also allowed above-ground smuggling.
After the Oct. 7 massacre, Egypt did not attempt to soothe tensions in the Middle East. In the endless ceasefire talks that occurred, Egypt (and Qatar) showed a clear affinity for Hamas. Also, the Egyptian Army deployed tanks near the Gaza border, reportedly to protest Israel’s continued presence in the Philadelphi Corridor and stop a mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs from Gaza into Egypt, despite many of them wishing to flee an active war zone.
Egypt is not living up to its peace accord with Israel. Allowing the construction of tunnels and other assistance to Hamas was one violation of that accord. Another is that Egypt has amassed large numbers of tanks and other military equipment and personnel, including the construction of three new airfields in the Sinai Desert, beginning even before the war.
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