When leaders of every Arab country meet for an emergency summit in Cairo on Tuesday, they will face pressure to come up with something that has proved elusive for decades: a comprehensive Arab vision for Gaza, just as the Israel-Hamas cease-fire is teetering and Israel, buoyed by President Trump’s backing, holds the upper hand.
“Arab Summit: Rescue mission,” read the stark headline on Saturday in Al-Ahram, Egypt’s state-owned flagship newspaper, over an article outlining the “uphill task” facing Arab leaders.
The summit was originally called in response to Mr. Trump’s proposal last month to expel Palestinians from Gaza, send them to Egypt and Jordan and turn the territory into a tourism hub, an idea much of the world has rejected as ethnic cleansing.
Egypt, Jordan and Arab allies have pushed back on the plan, saying it would destroy any remaining hope of a Palestinian state, threaten their national security and destabilize the entire region.
Mr. Trump appeared to soften his position recently, saying in an interview that he was “not forcing it.” But the Arab world remains deeply concerned about Gaza, especially now that the cease-fire that has paused the bloodshed there for six weeks and seen Israel and Hamas exchange Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages is in doubt.
In the latest crisis to shake the agreement, Israel began blocking all aid and goods from entering Gaza on Sunday, attempting to strong-arm Hamas into delaying a permanent end to the war.
Israel also recently drove tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank and ruled out allowing them to return, intensifying Arab fears that an Israel emboldened by Mr. Trump’s support will attempt to annex the West Bank.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has haunted the Middle East for decades. But recent events have brought the question of how to resolve it to a head, forcing Arab countries to scramble over the last few weeks to respond to Israel’s actions and come up with a counter proposal to Mr. Trump’s.
Beyond insisting on Palestinian statehood and rejecting forcible displacement, Arab countries have not yet agreed on an alternative vision for Gaza — let alone one that Palestinian political factions, Israel, the United States and other countries would sign on to.
The leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Gulf Arab states met last month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to strategize ahead of Tuesday’s summit in Cairo, which will include all 22 members of the Arab League as well as the United Nations secretary-general and the European Council’s president.
At the summit, where representatives aim to hammer out a formal proposal, the discussions will likely center on Egypt’s plan, which would involve rebuilding Gaza without moving Palestinians out of the strip and putting technocrats and community leaders unaffiliated with Hamas in charge of the territory after the fighting ends, according to diplomats and officials briefed on the proposal. Under this framework, oil-rich Gulf states would likely pay for Gaza’s reconstruction, though Egyptian officials have also suggested Europe could also contribute funds.
The Egyptian plan is “ready” to be presented to other Arab countries, Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, said during a news conference with a senior European Union official in Cairo on Sunday, according to Al Qahera News, a government-linked broadcaster.
He called for the second phase of the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas — which is supposed to lead to a permanent end to the war — to start immediately.
On Saturday, Mr. Abdelatty said in a news conference with the Palestinian prime minister and foreign minister that Egypt had volunteered to train Palestinian police forces to be deployed in Gaza while the territory is rebuilt.
But there remains little agreement over central questions, such as how to govern Gaza, how to manage its security, how to rebuild it and what role Hamas would play, if any.
And any plan would have to get around a more fundamental issue: While Arab leaders will support only a framework that would include at least a nominal path toward Palestinian statehood, Israeli leaders are against paving the way to Palestinian sovereignty.
Arab leaders also want the approval of the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized body that runs the West Bank and also administered Gaza until Hamas seized control of the strip in 2007. The two territories should be united as one state, Arab officials argue, and must be linked in any conversations about Gaza.
But the authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, has appeared reluctant to give his blessing to any governing arrangement, including the technocratic committee Egypt has proposed, that does not put him fully in control of Gaza.
Hamas officials have said they would be willing to hand over control of civil affairs to such a committee. But they refuse to demilitarize in Gaza, a crucial demand of both Israel and Mr. Trump, whose top Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month that Hamas “has to go.”
Rania Khaled contributed reporting.
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