Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met, on Sep 13, 2021 Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to be the first official trip by a leader of the Israeli occupation to Egypt since January 2011.

The three-hour meeting addressed crucial files. The most important of which were the bilateral ties between Egypt and the Israeli occupation, the calm-escalation status between the Palestinian Resistance and the occupation, the issue of the occupation’s soldiers captured by the resistance, the reconstruction of Gaza’s destroyed buildings, and other regional issues.

Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, President of Egypt; Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Abbas Kamel, Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, attended the meeting from the Egyptian side, while the attendees of the occupation’s side were PM Naftali Bennett; Shemrit Meir, the military secretary of the new government’s minister; Yaron Blum, the occupation’s coordinator for captives and missing persons and Eyal Hulta, the occupation’s national security council chairman.

The meeting concluded with Al-Sisi's pledge to work on preventing the launching of rockets from Gaza. Although, Bennet also urged Al-Sisi to hinder the rise in the power of the Palestinian Resistance by increasing oversight of Gaza's crossings.

Analysis and Insight:

• PM Naftali Bennet’s visit to Egypt came after a series of preparatory steps represented in Al-Sisi’s congratulation of his counterpart Isaac Herzog for his appointment as the new president of the occupation state as well as congratulating the Jews of the Hebron new year. The visit also came after an official invitation headed by Abbas Kamel, the Director of the Egyptian Intelligence Directorate, to Bennet when they met in Tel Aviv last August.
• The visit came at a crucial timing; when the tension between Gaza and the Israeli occupation is increasing because of the occupation’s imposition of more procedures against the strip and its stopping of the reconstruction of Gaza’s destroyed buildings.
• Through the visit, the Israeli occupation seeks to use Egypt as a means to pressurize Gaza and the leadership of the Palestinian Resistance to consolidate the state of calm and find a solution for the soldiers captured by the resistance. The occupation also insists on releasing its captive soldiers in exchange for the reconstruction of Gaza and lifting the blockade. Hence, the resistance demands a descent, honorable prisoners’ swap deal.
• This visit would be a personal gain for the new PM Naftali Bennett as he will present himself as an effective, strong alternative to his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu. It will also grant him further power and attendance as an upcoming leader for the Right-Wing and upcoming chief for the occupation entity.
• In return, Egypt seeks to seize the occupation's ties with the United States and Ethiopia so it can step in and contribute to resolving the crisis of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It also pursues to obtain good relations with the US and Biden's administration to help it improve its negotiating position with Ethiopia.
• It is apparent that there is a process of convergence between Egypt and the occupation. Since the peace deal in 1979, this is the first time to operate direct Tel Aviv-Cairo flights from early next month. Once the flights start, they are expected to be four direct commercial flights a week.
• The Bennet-Sisi meeting is deemed as a normal extension of the normalization of relations between Egypt and the occupation, which has not ended since Camp David Accords; either they are held in secret or in public.

 

Situation Report:

Based on the abovementioned, the situation report can be summarized as follows:

The visit might come within the context of arranging and controlling the relationship between Gaza and the Israeli occupation by depending on Egypt as a mediator that can affect the Palestinian Resistance and the governance system in the strip. Also, the occupation apparently seeks to push Egypt to pressurize the Palestinian Resistance to release its soldiers captured by the resistance and to stop the launching of the rockets from the strip.

It is also a continuation of Bennett's efforts to present himself as a powerful leader and to play an effective role between international influencing forces, such as the United States, and other regional ones such as, Egypt, in order to form a new strategy for the occupation entity and its wide-ranging and far-reaching environment relations.