Egypt’s El-Sisi calls for recognition of Palestinian state

A handout picture released by the Egyptian Presidency on Nov. 24, 2023 shows Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo at the Ittihadia presidential Palace in Cairo. (AFP)

• El-Sisi said reviving the process aimed at ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict “may not be what is required”
• “The results of this path faltering for 30 years tells us that we must” adopt a different approach, he said

CAIRO: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Friday appeared to discredit the moribund Israel-Palestinian peace process and instead called on the international community to recognize the Palestinian state.
During a joint news conference with the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium in Cairo, El-Sisi said reviving the process aimed at ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict “may not be what is required.”
“The results of this path faltering for 30 years tells us that we must” adopt a different approach, he said.
This would entail “the recognition of the Palestinian state by the international community and bringing it into the United Nations... This would show seriousness,” El-Sisi added.
He pointed to the high civilian death toll in successive Gaza conflicts, saying the wars erupted because the “political horizons for resolving the Palestinian cause always failed” to fulfil the Palestinians’ aspirations.
El-Sisi’s remarks come on the first day of a truce between Israel and Hamas, to be accompanied by the release of hostages taken in Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
The four-day truce deal was concluded with mediation from Qatar, with support from Egypt and the United States, and comes almost seven weeks after the war erupted on October 7.
Israel has launched an aerial and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip that has left 14,854 Palestinians dead, among them 6,150 children, according to the Hamas government.
It came after militants from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory that left around 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
Hamas and other Palestinian groups also took around 240 hostages to Gaza on the day of the attack.