Egypt and Qatar, along with Turkey, are key regional supporters of the US-backed peace plan, which Gaza-based militant group Hamas and Israel agreed to on October 10. This week in Egypt, the signing was signed by US President Donald Trump along with the leaders of two Arab states and Türkiye. One declaration was aimed at consolidating the ceasefire in Gaza.
so iIt may be that the future of the war-torn Gaza Strip and its approximately 2.1 million residents will depend on them. That is, if the peace deal between Israel and Hamas progresses beyond this first phase, bringing the war in Gaza to a halt after nearly two years.
egyptian profile building
“Egypt’s role as a key mediator in negotiations to secure a ceasefire and end Israel’s genocide in Gaza has allowed Cairo to reassert its strategic value to its international partners,” Timothy Caldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, or TIMEP, a think tank, told DW.
“Egypt will want to maintain this momentum of projecting its diplomatic weight in the region,” he predicts.
Kaldas said this role has led to a boost in foreign aid and financing.
In February 2024, the United Arab Emirates signed a construction project worth $35 billion (€29 billion) in Ras al-Hikma, on the Mediterranean peninsula near the city of Alexandria.
In March 2024, the European Commission pledged a total of €7.4 billion ($8.7 billion), including loans and other financial support, to Cairo.
“For Cairo, it is also a diplomatic victory that the earlier discussion of forcibly displacing the population from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan has been sidelined in the plan put forward by US President Donald Trump,” Caldas told DW.
Furthermore, Cairo wants to play a key role in reconstruction, he noted.
“Egypt has a lot of construction capacity that they have built up with their mega projects and having Egyptian construction companies pay someone else to do work in Gaza is definitely something the Egyptians would like to arrange,” says Kaldas.
Latest interim rapid damage and needs assessments by the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union estimated Recovery and reconstruction in Gaza required $70 billion (€59.8 billion), with $20 billion needed in the first three years alone.
However Kaldas also said that Egyptian officials would want to be careful in framing their involvement in Gaza as supporting the Palestinian population and acting as a surrogate for Israel.
Qatar’s role as mediator
“Qatar, the other Arab signatory to the document supporting the Trump-sponsored peace plan, has the most interest in ensuring that the ceasefire stays on a political track long-term, where its mediation remains indispensable,” Christian Alexander, senior fellow at the Abu Dhabi-based Rabdan Security and Defense Institute, told DW.
Qatar has close ties to the US, Israel’s strongest ally. In 1996, the US opened its largest regional airbase, Al Udeid, about 30 kilometers (19 mi) southwest of Doha, the capital of Qatar. In 2022, Qatar was designated a major non-NATO ally by the US and Qatari officials say it has also been hosting the political leadership of Hamas since 2012 at the request of the US.
Alexander said, “While Doha accepts that Hamas should eventually lose control in Gaza and being pressured to immediately expel the political leadership without a comprehensive agreement would destroy the strength that makes Qatar useful.”
In early September, an Israeli attack on Hamas’ political leadership in Doha raised doubts about Qatar’s status as a preferred US ally and its role as a mediator in peace talks.
supporting post-war planning
Israeli newspaper on Friday… Israel Hayom It was reported that Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain had everything warned the White House That “we will not continue this process as long as Hamas retains its weapons.”
Alexander says the UAE is not a leading mediator like Qatar or Egypt, but they are an important diplomatic and financial supporter of post-war planning. In 2020, the UAE signed a normalization agreement with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords
Even when the ceasefire agreement was signed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia was not on the front line. But Sebastian Sans, a senior researcher at the German think tank Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient, or CARPO, told DW, “Riyadh played an important role behind the scenes and the ceasefire represents an indirect diplomatic success.”
“Riyadh wants to see stability not only in the Gaza Strip, but in the entire region as this is essential for its economic diversification,” Sans said. “However, Saudi Arabia does not want to be involved in Gaza in any way.”
Sans believes Riyadh may be willing to train Palestinian troops in cooperation with Egypt and Jordan, rather than sending its own forces to the Gaza Strip.
“Above all, Riyadh wants to ensure that Hamas no longer plays a major role,” Sans said. But, he added, “It is no secret that Riyadh does not consider the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas to be particularly trustworthy partners.”
It also remains to be seen whether Israel and Saudi Arabia return to US-backed talks to re-establish diplomatic ties. Previous rounds of talks have stalled following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the war that followed. Saudi Arabia has insisted on a credible path toward a two-state solution, in which an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel should be part of any path toward normalization.
Meanwhile, Trump seems positive about such a deal. On Friday, he said in an interview with US broadcaster Fox that he hoped “Saudi Arabia will go in, and I hope others will go in too.”