Tripartite Summit: U.S., Egypt, Israel Convene in Cairo for Rafah Reopening and Gaza Border Security
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| Officials from Egypt, Israel and America discuss Sunday the reopening of the Rafah crossing |
An Egyptian official said on Saturday that officials from Israel, Egypt and the United States will meet in Cairo on Sunday to discuss reopening the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Israel occupied the crossing from the Palestinian side in May during its attack on the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, and invaded parts of it.
Earlier, the American website Axios reported that the White House is scheduled to hold a tripartite meeting between American, Egyptian and Israeli officials in Cairo to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing and a plan to secure the border between Egypt and Gaza.
The website then quoted three American and Israeli officials as saying that an American delegation headed by Terry Wolf, chief director of the Middle East at the National Security Council at the White House, was expected to travel to Egypt in the coming days.
Axios indicated that the trip was agreed upon during a phone call last Friday between President Joe Biden and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
It was also stated that Al-Sisi agreed - during the call - to Biden’s request to resume the flow of aid trucks to Gaza, after they stopped two weeks ago in protest against Israel’s control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing.
An American official said, “Biden told Sisi that if the delivery of aid trucks is not resumed, the United States will publicly criticize Egypt because of that.”
Israeli and American officials stated that a delegation of Israeli security officials is also expected to travel to Cairo at the same time.
These officials said that the White House wants to hold a tripartite meeting between Wolff, his accompanying delegation, representatives of the Egyptian army, the intelligence service, and the Israeli delegation.
Discussion topics
American officials said that one of the main issues in the talks will be a plan for how to reopen the Rafah crossing without an Israeli military presence on the Palestinian side of the crossing.
Israel presented to Egypt a plan to reopen the crossing with the participation of the United Nations and Palestinian representatives from Gaza who are not linked to the Hamas movement, according to the American website.
As part of the potential plan, the Israeli army will redeploy outside the crossing and secure it from the outside “from Hamas attacks,” as the American website put it.
American officials said that their country also wants to discuss a plan to limit what it believes is a weapons smuggling route by building an underground “wall” against tunnels on the border between Egypt and Gaza.
They stated that the United States wants to discuss with Egypt the possibility of forming a "transitional force" to assume responsibility for security in Gaza for the so-called "day after the war."
Axios indicated that the United States wants Egypt to play a major role in a security force alongside other Arab countries. American officials said that there is interest among several countries in the region to participate - under certain political circumstances - in a temporary Arab security force in Gaza that would secure the borders, provide humanitarian aid, and train a new Palestinian security force.
An Israeli official also said that a meeting had been arranged on the issue. The source did not provide further details.
The expected tripartite meeting comes approximately a month after Israel took control of the Gaza side of the crossing, and Egypt halted aid supplies through Rafah.
Israel and Egypt blamed each other for closing the crossing. Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz called on Egypt to reopen the crossing. Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry accused Katz of “distorting the facts,” saying that the Israeli attack near the crossing - and the danger it poses to aid workers - is the reason for Egypt’s inability to deliver aid to Gaza.
The Rafah crossing was previously the central artery for the flow of aid into Gaza, and last November, some injured Palestinians and foreign nationals entered Egypt through it.
With the city of Rafah becoming a focus of hostilities, aid is being transferred to the Gaza Strip through two other crossings on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, the Egyptian state-run Cairo News Channel quoted an informed, high-level source as saying that Egypt remained steadfast in its demand for the Israeli army to completely withdraw from the Rafah crossing as a precondition for reopening it.
The source said, according to the channel: “We confirm Egypt’s adherence to the complete Israeli withdrawal from the crossing as a condition for resuming work there.”
The source denied Israeli media reports that claimed that Egypt had agreed, in principle, to reopen the crossing for humanitarian aid, after discussions with Israel and the United States earlier, Thursday.
