Egyptian Foreign Minister visits Washington, as Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Appears on Verge of Collapse
“If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock,” Trump said, “I would say, cancel it, and all bets are off and let all hell break out.”
Feb. 11, 2025
WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan24) - Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty arrived in Washington on Sunday and met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday.
Abdelatty’s visit comes ahead of that of Jordan’s King Abdullah. It will mark the first visit of an Arab leader to Washington during Donald Trump’s second term, and the two are scheduled to meet later today.
In addition, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is supposed to visit Washington this month, but no date has been set.
Initially, it seemed that these visits would be key elements in a U.S. effort to consolidate the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. However, the fragile truce between the two appears to have suddenly fallen apart, and its future is now uncertain,
Hamas’s Mistreatment of Hostages
On Sunday, Israeli forces withdrew from an east-west road in Gaza: the Netzarim Corridor. It cuts the Gaza Strip in two, and its occupation by Israel forces prevented displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes in the north.
The Israeli withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor was an important step in moving the ceasefire forward, undertaken after Hamas released three Israeli hostages the day before.
Held for over a year, the hostages suffered from the harsh conditions in which they were held: kept in underground tunnels and provided with meager rations.
Following their release, The New York Times described them as “frail” and “painfully thin.” Hamas then proceeded to compound the appearance of having abused the hostages by parading them in humiliating circumstances on a stage before a large audience prior to their release.
Each hostage held “a Hamas-issued ‘release certificate.’” the Times reported, and they were “made to recite words written for them—including thanks to the militants who had held them for 16 months.”
Hamas’s calculations are difficult to understand. The organization appears, at best, indifferent to the U.S. view of what it is doing.
Perhaps, Hamas’s leadership does not understand Donald Trump, and it does not recognize that Trump is very different from Joe Biden, indeed different from any other U.S. president in recent years.
Hamas’s actions on Saturday provoked Trump’s ire. As Trump said about the hostages, “They looked like Holocaust survivors,” and “I don’t know how much longer we can take that.”
He added, “At some point, we’re gonna lose our patience.” And that, indeed, may be happening.
On Monday, Hamas further angered Trump. Complaining that Israel was violating the ceasefire, it announced there would be no additional hostage releases “until further notice.”
Trump: Hostages Must be Released by Saturday
Trump responded to Hamas’s spectacle with extremely strong words. “If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock,” he told journalists, “I would say, cancel it, and all bets are off and let all hell break out.”
Trump seemed to suggest that he was prepared to give Israel the green light to resume its war on Gaza.
Notably, it was right-wing members of the Israeli government who had most opposed the ceasefire. Hamas benefited from it—but the brutal way that Hamas dealt with the hostages played directly into their hands.
Indeed, Israel responded to these events by cancelling leave for its troops in Gaza, while it raised the state of alert for its forces there, increasing the possibility of a renewal of the conflict.
Egypt, Jordan Reject Trump’s Proposal for Moving Palestinians
During the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington last week, Trump offered some highly unusual and controversial notions for resolving the Gaza conflict.
Above all, Trump suggested that Palestinians be moved out of Gaza to Egypt and Jordan and that Gaza—with its 24-mile Mediterranean coast—be reconstructed as the Riviera of the Middle East.
However, neither Egypt nor Jordan is at all agreeable to that proposal. As Egypt’s quasi-official Al-Ahram newspaper affirmed following Abdelatty’s meeting with Rubio, the Foreign Minister “reaffirmed Egypt’s firm stance in line with Arab and Islamic positions, emphasizing the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations,”
At the same time, as Al-Ahram explained, Egypt has strong strategic ties with the United States. Those ties go back to the period after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which was launched by Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat to recover Egyptian territory, above all, and if a wider peace was not possible, then to pull Egypt out of the conflict with Israel, once his basic goal was secured.
Sadat’s predecessor, Gamal Abdul Nasser, had assumed a central role in the conflict with Israel, and it had cost Egypt dearly. Thus, Egyptians came to complain that the Palestinians wanted to fight to the last Egyptian, and, so, there was popular support for Sadat’s initiative.
The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which U.S. President Jimmy Carter brokered, helped drive the Soviets out of the Middle East. That treaty established the U,S. position in the Middle East, and it was facilitated by the generous provision of aid to both Egypt and Israel.
Currently, Egypt ranks third among Middle Eastern countries in terms of U,S. aid, receiving $1.5 billion a year.
Israel is the top Middle Eastern country, receiving $3,3 billion a year.
Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. It is second in terms of U.S. aid to Middle Eastern countries and receives $1.7 billion a year.
Jordan has the same considerations as Egypt and would reject the notion of transferring the Gaza population to its territory.
In addition, Jordan’s population is half Palestinian, and “Trump’s proposal to remove all Palestinians from Gaza and send them to nearby countries has stoked widespread anger” in Jordan, The Washington Post reported, as it described the Hashemite kingdom as “a longtime U,S, ally that is already home to millions of Palestinian refugees—and where experts say a new influx of displaced people would destabilize the country.”
Trump meets with Abdullah on Tuesday, and, presumably, the Jordanian ruler will explain that. What remains to be seen is how Trump will incorporate that into his approach to this problem.