CAIRO: The fate of dissidents languishing in Egypt’s prisons has long been under scrutiny, but one veteran is leveraging his political prowess in a bid to have them released.
Mohamed Al-Sadat, 66, nephew of former president Anwar Al-Sadat, the first Arab leader to strike peace with Israel, has long been a fixture of Egypt’s political scene.
Now, he has become an unofficial negotiator advocating on behalf of figures imprisoned under the uncompromising administration of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
“Dialogue with the state’s institutions isn’t just a one-man job, there are many others in close contact... but lately we’ve been successful in using a language that is being listened to,” he said in his plush office in an upscale Cairo suburb.
“This has been effective in some cases (of political prisoners) being re-examined,” he said.
Forty-six prisoners were freed in July, including prominent activists such as rights lawyer Mahienour el-Massry.
But as many as 60,000 political prisoners are serving time in Egyptian jails, according to human rights defenders.
El-Sisi, a former army chief, became president in 2014 after leading the military ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi a year earlier.
He has since overseen a sweeping crackdown on dissent.
Those jailed for criticizing the political status quo have included academics, journalists, lawyers, activists, comedians, Islamists, presidential candidates and MPs.
But Sadat is less concerned about the conditions that led to their arrest than with securing their release.
“There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes in these security agencies where they undertake an examination of specific cases that we’ve raised, whether from a humanitarian or legal perspective,” he explained.
With a portrait of his uncle, a Nobel laureate for the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, gazing down on him, Sadat was careful not to appear too critical of El-Sisi’s human rights record.
He insisted that on-off pressures imposed by US President Joe Biden’s administration have not influenced Egypt’s willingness to improve its often condemned record on human rights.
“I don’t agree that it (reform efforts) all stems from international pressures or a new US administration, that’s not really appropriate to say,” he maintained.
El-Sisi enjoyed a close working relationship with former US president Donald Trump who said the Egyptian leader was doing “a fantastic job in a very difficult situation,” in reference to counter-terrorism and regional instability.
But Biden kicked off his term this year by vowing no more “blank checks” to El-Sisi.
However, with Cairo’s critical role in brokering a cease-fire between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel after fighting broke out in May, ties with Washington have significantly warmed.
Leading an “International Dialogue” delegation comprised of lawmakers and media personalities to Washington last week, Sadat went on a “charm offensive,” according to one attendee of the meetings.
The dialogue included meetings with State Department officials, think tanks, policymakers and Egyptian activists.
“Sadat’s not the boss. He is there as a figurehead or elder statesman,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.
“Maybe El-Sisi wants to get his DC invitation and this is the way,” the participant added.
Sadat, who once mulled a presidential run in 2018 against El-Sisi, describes himself as an “honest broker” and “messenger” but not the decision-maker.
“We’re told by judicial officials that some inmates will be released after looking over their case files again. We then tell their families. That’s the process in a nutshell,” Sadat said.
For one former detainee unable to leave Egypt because he is on a no-fly list, Sadat’s role has been crucial in negotiating his case with the interior ministry.
Describing him as “genuinely sympathetic,” the detainee, who requested anonymity, said: “He’s treading a very delicate line ... He’s interfacing with security agencies and civil society activists.”
“He’s the man of the hour really when it comes to human rights.”
Anwar Sadat’s nephew negotiates way out for Egypt prisoners
https://arab.news/pasyj
Anwar Sadat’s nephew negotiates way out for Egypt prisoners
- Mohamed Al-Sadat has become an unofficial negotiator advocating on behalf of figures imprisoned under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi
UN Security Council adopts Gaza resolution calling for immediate ceasefire and release of hostages
- Plan consists of three phases, culminating in permanent halt to hostilities and start of reconstruction
- It was the 11th time council had voted on draft resolution relating to the war in Gaza, only three adopted
NEW YORK CITY: A US-led resolution endorsing a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the eight-month war in Gaza was adopted by the UN Security Council on Monday, with 14 of the 15 members voting in favor and Russia abstaining.
It was the 11th time the council had voted on a draft resolution relating to the war in Gaza. Only three have been adopted.
Resolution 2735, a copy of which was obtained by Arab News, welcomes a three-phase ceasefire proposal announced by US President Joe Biden on May 31, which Washington said Israeli authorities have accepted, and calls on Hamas to accept it as well. It urges both sides “to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition.”
After it was adopted, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the council has sent “a clear message to Hamas: accept the ceasefire deal on the table.” If it does so, “the fighting would stop today,” she added.
Hamas can now see the international community is united behind a deal that will save lives, help Gazans “to rebuild and heal” and reunite Israeli hostages with their families, she said.
The deal will also lead to “a more secure Israel and unlock the possibility of more progress, including calm along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon,” Thomas-Greenfield continued.
“We cannot forget the Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel, under threat from Hezbollah. These attacks from terrorist groups backed by Iran must stop. They have to stop.”
She said Palestinians have endured “sheer hell in this war started by Hamas. There’s an opportunity to chart a different course; Hamas must take it.”
Phase one of the plan, as outlined by the resolution, requires “an immediate, full and complete ceasefire, with the release of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, the return of the remains of some hostages who have been killed, (and) the exchange of Palestinian prisoners.”
It also calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli forces from the populated areas in Gaza, the return of Palestinian civilians to their homes and neighborhoods in all areas of Gaza, including in the north, as well as the safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout the Gaza Strip to all Palestinian civilians who need it, including housing units delivered by the international community.”
Phase two would include “a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.” Phase 3 would begin “a major, multi-year reconstruction plan for Gaza and the return of the remains of any deceased hostages still in Gaza to their families.”
The proposal states that should negotiations between the two sides during phase one take longer than six weeks, the ceasefire will be maintained as long as the talks continue, and it “welcomes the readiness of the United States, Egypt and Qatar to work to ensure negotiations keep going until all the agreements are reached and phase two is able to begin.”
It rejects any potential attempts to impose “demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza,” reiterates the commitment to a two state solution, and stresses the importance of “unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
Slovenia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Ondina Blokar Drobic, told council members after the vote: “We have been saying this for months now: The suffering in Gaza must end.
“We have been constantly calling for the immediate release of hostages. However, military operations for the release of hostages, leaving hundreds of civilians killed and injured, like the one in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Saturday, cannot be the new normal. The principles of international humanitarian law and human rights law apply to hostage-rescue operations as well.”
Listing the many atrocities and horrors witnessed during the war, Drobic added: “The denial of aid to civilians, including women, children, persons with disabilities and older persons; humanitarian and UN personnel killed; UN premises targeted; hospitals besieged; children’s limbs amputated without anesthesia; women giving birth without appropriate assistance; mass graves; civilian areas in Gaza and in Israel targeted, attacked and destroyed — none of this should be taking place.
“Photos of children, some of them born during this war, dying because of malnutrition” will go down in history among the defining images of a conflict “this council should have prevented.”
She added: “It is for this reason we once again call for an immediate ceasefire. This is the first step toward achieving a comprehensive solution.”
Hamas, Palestinian Authority welcome UN Security Council resolution for Gaza ceasefire
- Hamas says ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan
- More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip
CAIRO: The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, its ally the Islamic Jihad group and the rival Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas’s welcomed a UN Security Council resolution backing a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“The Palestinian president considers the adoption of this resolution a step in the right direction to end the war of genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
In its statement, Hamas said it was ready to cooperate with mediators over implementing the principles of the plan.
Hamas earlier on Monday said it was only willing to accept a deal that would secure an end to the war in Gaza while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was determined to pursue war against Hamas.
“Hamas welcomes what is included in the Security Council resolution that affirmed the permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the complete withdrawal, the prisoners’ exchange, the reconstruction, the return of the displaced to their areas of residence, the rejection of any demographic change or reduction in the area of the Gaza Strip, and the delivery of needed aid to our people in the Strip,” the militant group said in a statement.
Dr. Saleh bin Hamad Al-Tuwaijri, the Secretary-General of the Arab Red Crescent and Red Cross Organization, in a statement also welcomed the resolution, saying the ceasefire will “to lead to an end to the loss of lives” and “pave the way for the return of the displaced to their original homes within the Strip.”
He also appealed to the international community to intensify humanitarian and development assistance for Gaza Strip residents that have been displaced by the war.
US President Joe Biden outlined the truce accord last month and it envisions a ceasefire in stages, ultimately leading to a permanent end to the war. But Israel has said it will agree only to temporary pauses until Hamas is defeated, while Hamas has countered it will not accept a deal that does not guarantee the war will end.
With the conflict in its ninth month, the plan got further backing on Monday from the United Nations where 14 members of the Security Council adopted a US-drafted resolution in favor of the proposal while Russia abstained.
Separately, the Islamic Jihad said early on Tuesday that it looks “positively” to what the resolution included, “especially in terms of opening the door to reaching a comprehensive cessation of aggression and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces” from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas also said it was willing to engage in indirect negotiations over implementing the principles “that are consistent with the demands of our people and resistance.”
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Presidency welcomed the resolution saying the presidency “is with any resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and preserves Palestinian land unity.”
More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s eight-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.
What does Israel’s rescue of 4 captives, and the killing of 274 Palestinians, mean for truce talks?
- Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire last year, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and reaching a similar agreement is still widely seen as the only way of getting the rest of the hostages back
TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s dramatic weekend rescue of four hostages from the Gaza Strip, in an operation that local health officials say killed 274 Palestinians, came at a sensitive time in the 8-month-old war, as Israel and Hamas weigh a US proposal for a ceasefire and the release of the remaining captives.
Both sides face renewed pressure to make a deal: The complex rescue is unlikely to be replicated on a scale needed to bring back scores of remaining hostages, and it was a powerful reminder for Israelis that there are still surviving captives held in harsh conditions. Hamas now has four fewer bargaining chips.
But they could also dig in, as they repeatedly have over months of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Hamas is still insisting on an end to the war as part of any agreement, while Israel says it is still committed to destroying the militant group.
Here is a look at the fallout from the operation and how it might affect ceasefire talks:
ELATION, AND MOUNTING CALLS FOR A DEAL
The rescue operation was Israel’s most successful since the start of the war, bringing home four of the roughly 250 captives seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack, including Noa Argamani, who became an icon of the struggle to free the hostages.
The raid also killed at least 274 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, deepening the suffering of people in Gaza who have had to endure the brutal war and a humanitarian catastrophe. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its tallies.
The rescue was met with elation in Israel, which is still reeling from the Hamas attack and agonizing over the fate of the 80 captives and the remains of over 40 others still held in Gaza. Israeli hard-liners are likely to seize on it as proof that military pressure alone will bring the rest back.
But only three other hostages have been freed by military force since the start of the war. Another three were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces after they escaped on their own, and Hamas says others have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
“If anyone believes that yesterday’s operation absolves the government of the need to strike a deal, they are living a fantasy,” Israeli columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper. “There are people out there who need to be saved, and the sooner the better.”
Even the Israeli army’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, acknowledged the limits of military force. “What will bring most of the hostages back home alive is a deal,” he told reporters.
Over 100 hostages were released during a weeklong ceasefire last year, in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and reaching a similar agreement is still widely seen as the only way of getting the rest of the hostages back. Hours after Saturday’s rescue, tens of thousands of Israelis attended protests in Tel Aviv calling for such a deal.
US President Joe Biden last week announced a proposal for a phased plan for a ceasefire and hostage release, setting in motion the administration’s most concentrated diplomatic push for a truce.
Biden described it as an Israeli proposal, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly questioned some aspects of it, particularly its call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a lasting truce. His ultranationalist coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he ends the war without destroying Hamas.
That appears to have only deepened suspicions on the part of Hamas, which has demanded international guarantees that the war will end. It’s unclear if such guarantees have been offered, and Hamas has not yet officially responded to the plan.
NETANYAHU SEEKS TO GAIN
The rescue operation was a rare win for Netanyahu, who many Israelis blame for the security failures leading up to the Oct. 7 attack and the failure to return the hostages despite months of grinding war.
He has reveled in the operation’s success, rushing Saturday to the hospital where the freed hostages were held and meeting with each of them as cameras rolled. The rescue operation will likely help rehabilitate his image.
But as the elation fades, he will still face heavy pressure from an American administration that wants to wind the war down and an ultranationalist base that wants to vanquish Hamas at all costs. His main political opponent, the retired general Benny Gantz, quit the emergency wartime coalition on Sunday, leaving Netanyahu even more beholden to the hard-liners.
Netanyahu is already facing criticism from some of the families of deceased hostages, who say they received no such visits and accuse him of only taking credit for the war’s successes. Israel will also likely face heightened international pressure over the raid’s high Palestinian death toll.
“The success in freeing four hostages is a magnificent tactical victory that has not changed our deplorable strategic situation,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel’s Maariv daily.
It all makes for a tough balancing act, even for someone like Netanyahu, who friends and foes alike consider to be a master politician.
The operation could provide the kind of boost with the Israeli public that would allow him to justify making a deal with Hamas. Or he might conclude that time is on his side, and that he can drive a harder bargain with the militants as they grapple with a major setback.
HAMAS LOSES BARGAINING CHIPS
Hamas has lost four precious bargaining chips it had hoped to trade for high-profile Palestinian prisoners. Argamani, widely known from a video showing her pleading for her life as militants dragged her away on a motorcycle, was a particularly significant loss for Hamas.
The raid may have also dealt a blow to Hamas’ morale. In the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas managed to humiliate a country with a far superior army, and since then it has repeatedly regrouped despite devastating military operations across Gaza.
But the fact that Israel was able to mount a complex rescue operation in broad daylight in the center of a crowded urban area has at least temporarily restored some of the mystique that Israel’s security forces lost on Oct. 7.
The operation also refocused global attention on the hostage crisis at a time when the US is rallying world pressure on Hamas to accept the ceasefire deal.
But Hamas has a long history of withstanding pressure from Israel and others — often at enormous cost to Palestinians. The militants may conclude that it’s best to use the remaining hostages to end the war while they still can — or they might just look for better places to hide them.
Angry scenes as Israeli parliament votes on conscription law
- The issue of lifting some of the restrictions on conscripting ultra-Orthodox men into the military has been a divisive issue for decades in a country
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliament moved ahead with a contentious law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox religious students into the military amid angry scenes on Monday in the Knesset as families of some of the Gaza hostages demanded more action to get them home.
Coming a day after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government in a dispute over the strategic aims of the Gaza war, the vote and confrontations underscored the volatile mix of forces buffeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now increasingly dependent on his allies from the hard right.
The conscription bill, which must still pass further readings and committee hearings after the late night vote, would see a gradual entry into the military of some ultra-Orthdox Jews, who have traditionally resisted serving in the armed forces.
Although originally put forward by Gantz in 2022 under the previous government, he now opposes the measure, which he says is inadequate for new personnel demands facing the military.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the last of a group of former generals left following the departure of Gantz and his ally, former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, broke ranks and voted against the bill.
By contrast, the religious parties in the coalition, which have strongly opposed a general expansion of conscription, gave their support, with a view to inserting changes in the review stage.
While the proposal is for more ultra-Orthodox in the military, their numbers would be restricted and the bill would allow some alternatives to military service.
“We have a great opportunity that should not be missed. The ultra-Orthodox public must not be pushed into a corner,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of one of the pro-settler parties in the coalition, said in a statement.
The issue of lifting some of the restrictions on conscripting ultra-Orthodox men into the military has been a divisive issue for decades in a country where broad military service has been seen as one of the bedrocks of its security.
Resented by many secular Israelis, it has been more sensitive than ever since the start of the war in Gaza, in which more than 600 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
“There are those who supported it then and oppose it now because they see it as wrong for Israel now, and there are those who opposed it then and will support it now because they see an opportunity to change it,” Assaf Shapira, head of the political reform program at the Israel Democracy Institute, told Reuters.
As parliament prepared to vote on the bill, there were angry exchanges at a meeting of the finance committee, where members of some of the hostage families waylaid Smotrich and demanded the government do more to bring the captives home.
Inbal Tzach, whose cousin Tal Shoham was one of the 253 Israeli and foreign hostages abducted by Hamas gunmen as they rampaged through the communities near Gaza on Oct. 7, said ministers such as Smotrich needed to do everything to get the remaining 120 hostages back.
Smotrich, who has ruled out any deal with Hamas and has opposed proposals for a ceasefire deal which would bring the hostages back in an exchange for Palestinian prisoners, dismissed the families’ campaign as cynical.
“I will not endanger the State of Israel and its people,” he said. “I will not stop the war just before the destruction of Hamas, because this an existential danger to Israel.”
Israeli forces kill four Palestinians in West Bank arrest raid
- The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli forces opened fire at a vehicle near a village outside the city of Ramallah
RAMALLAH, West Bank: Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday, Palestinian officials said, and Israel’s border police said they had opened fire at a vehicle that tried to run them over during an arrest raid.
Israel’s border police said in a statement that forces had arrived at building to arrest suspects from an attempted attack earlier in the day. As they closed in, the statement said, four suspects tried to escape in a vehicle by running over security officers. The officers opened fire and killed them.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli forces opened fire at a vehicle near a village outside the city of Ramallah. It reported that Israeli forces later entered the village and eight people were injured during clashes.
Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the war in Gaza, has escalated further, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.
