CAIRO: Forty years after signing the Camp David Accords, Egypt and Israel live in uneasy peace, as cool diplomatic ties have failed to unfreeze other relations.
“There is still a psychological barrier between us and the Israeli people,” said Egyptian ex-lawmaker Mohammed Anwar Sadat, nephew of former president Anwar Sadat.
Mohammed Sadat proudly keeps a photo of his late uncle in his Cairo office.
Egypt’s then head of state risked everything in making peace with Israel at the US presidential retreat Camp David on September 17 1978.
The Accords, cemented by a peace treaty in 1979, saw regional powerhouse Egypt temporarily shunned by the rest of the Arab World.
Sadat himself was assassinated on October 6, 1981.
The late president “had great courage and a vision for the future,” his nephew said.
But the peace, he said, “has always been cold.”
While many Egyptians welcome the absence of war, they remain hostile to Israel.
“Egypt’s acceptance of full diplomatic and political normalization” has not translated into “a cultural or popular normalization,” said Mustafa Kamal Sayed, professor of political sciences at Cairo University.
This uneasy but stable status quo is reflected on Cairo’s streets, where many put their antipathy toward Israel down to their neighbor’s policies toward the Palestinians.
“The normalization failed to gain popular support because of events linked to Palestinians,” said bank worker Mohammed Oussam.
He said he could not forget Israel’s bombing of “schools and refugee camps” during Lebanon’s 1975 to 1990 civil war.
“The Israelis have not adhered to the principles of peace with the Palestinians or the Arabs,” said another Mohammed.
It’s a sentiment also shared by Islam Emam.
“We speak of peace, of normalization — then they kill our brothers and take their land,” he said, referring to the Palestinians.
He blames Israel’s government, rather than its citizens.
“In the end, nobody truly chooses his government,” he said.
Enmity toward Israel often crystallizes over sporting events.
Egyptian and Liverpool football maestro Mohamed Salah has been criticized at home for appearing in a Champions League match in Israel in 2013, when he played for Switzerland’s FC Basel.
Salah said he did not make political decisions.
Three years later, Egyptian judo Olympian Islam El Shehaby refused to shake hands with Israeli rival Or Sasson at the Rio games — a gesture that embarrased Egyptian authorities.
Writer and Hebrew translator Nael el-Toukhy said any Egyptian who reaches out to Israelis faces intense pressure.
Israel is a hot topic for Egyptian talk shows, guaranteed to stoke the kind of high feelings seen in debates on gay rights.
More than 65 percent of Egyptians alive today were not yet born when the Camp David Summit took place, according to official figures.
But Egyptian public rejection of Israel is a constant.
National politics is also affected, despite decades of formal diplomatic ties.
In March 2016, Egyptian lawmaker Tawfiq Okasha paid a high price for inviting Israel’s ambassador to dinner at his home.
Accused of discussing issues linked to national security, he was ousted from parliament in a two-thirds majority vote.
Even the country’s all-important tourism industry is a victim of “cold peace” — of the 3.9 million tourists who visited Israel in 2017, only 7,200 were from neighboring Egypt.
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Israel and Egypt’s enduring ‘cold peace’
Israel and Egypt’s enduring ‘cold peace’
- The Accords, cemented by a peace treaty in 1979, saw regional powerhouse Egypt temporarily shunned by the rest of the Arab World
- While many Egyptians welcome the absence of war, they remain hostile to Israel
Gaza hospital says receives fuel but only for about two days
KHAN YUNIS: A major Gaza hospital that had suspended several services due to diesel shortages said it resumed some operations on Friday after receiving fuel but warned the supplies would only last about two days.
Ravaged by more than two years of war, the Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza’s Nuseirat district cares for around 60 in-patients and receives nearly 1,000 people seeking medical treatment each day.
Earlier Friday, a senior official involved in managing the hospital, Ahmed Mehanna, said “most services have been temporarily stopped due to a shortage of the fuel needed for the generators.”
“Only essential departments remain operational: the emergency unit, maternity ward and paediatrics,” he had told AFP, adding that the hospital rented a small generator to keep those services running.
He had warned that a prolonged fuel shortage “would pose a direct threat to the hospital’s ability to deliver basic services.”
Under normal conditions, Al-Awda Hospital consumes between 1,000 and 1,200 liters of diesel per day, but it only had some 800 liters available.
Later Friday, Mehanna said that “this evening, 2,500 liters of fuel arrived from the World Health Organization, and we immediately resumed operations.”
“This quantity of fuel will last only two and a half days, but we have been promised an additional delivery next Sunday.”
Mohammed Salha, the hospital’s acting director, accused Israeli authorities of deliberately restricting fuel supplies to hospitals in Gaza.
“We are knocking on every door to continue providing services, but while the occupation allows fuel for international institutions, it restricts it for local health facilities such as Al-Awda,” Salha told AFP.
Health hard hit
Despite a fragile truce observed since October 10, the Gaza Strip remains engulfed in a severe humanitarian crisis.
While the ceasefire agreement stipulated the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, only 100 to 300 carrying humanitarian assistance can currently enter, according to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations.
The remaining convoys largely transport commercial goods that remain inaccessible to most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people.
Earlier Friday, Khitam Ayada, 30, who has taken refuge in Nuseirat, said she had gone to Al-Awda hospital after days of kidney pain.
But “they told me they didn’t have electricity to perform an X-ray... and that they couldn’t treat me,” the displaced woman said.
“We lack everything in our lives, even the most basic medical services,” she told AFP.
Gaza’s health sector has been among the hardest hit by the war.
During the fighting, the Israeli miliary repeatedly struck hospitals across Gaza, accusing Hamas of operating command centers there, an allegation the group denied.
International medical charity Doctors Without Borders now manages roughly one-third of Gaza’s 2,300 hospital beds, while all five stabilization centers for children suffering from severe malnutrition are supported by international NGOs.
The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, at least 70,942 people — also mostly civilians — have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
These figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Ravaged by more than two years of war, the Al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza’s Nuseirat district cares for around 60 in-patients and receives nearly 1,000 people seeking medical treatment each day.
Earlier Friday, a senior official involved in managing the hospital, Ahmed Mehanna, said “most services have been temporarily stopped due to a shortage of the fuel needed for the generators.”
“Only essential departments remain operational: the emergency unit, maternity ward and paediatrics,” he had told AFP, adding that the hospital rented a small generator to keep those services running.
He had warned that a prolonged fuel shortage “would pose a direct threat to the hospital’s ability to deliver basic services.”
Under normal conditions, Al-Awda Hospital consumes between 1,000 and 1,200 liters of diesel per day, but it only had some 800 liters available.
Later Friday, Mehanna said that “this evening, 2,500 liters of fuel arrived from the World Health Organization, and we immediately resumed operations.”
“This quantity of fuel will last only two and a half days, but we have been promised an additional delivery next Sunday.”
Mohammed Salha, the hospital’s acting director, accused Israeli authorities of deliberately restricting fuel supplies to hospitals in Gaza.
“We are knocking on every door to continue providing services, but while the occupation allows fuel for international institutions, it restricts it for local health facilities such as Al-Awda,” Salha told AFP.
Health hard hit
Despite a fragile truce observed since October 10, the Gaza Strip remains engulfed in a severe humanitarian crisis.
While the ceasefire agreement stipulated the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, only 100 to 300 carrying humanitarian assistance can currently enter, according to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations.
The remaining convoys largely transport commercial goods that remain inaccessible to most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people.
Earlier Friday, Khitam Ayada, 30, who has taken refuge in Nuseirat, said she had gone to Al-Awda hospital after days of kidney pain.
But “they told me they didn’t have electricity to perform an X-ray... and that they couldn’t treat me,” the displaced woman said.
“We lack everything in our lives, even the most basic medical services,” she told AFP.
Gaza’s health sector has been among the hardest hit by the war.
During the fighting, the Israeli miliary repeatedly struck hospitals across Gaza, accusing Hamas of operating command centers there, an allegation the group denied.
International medical charity Doctors Without Borders now manages roughly one-third of Gaza’s 2,300 hospital beds, while all five stabilization centers for children suffering from severe malnutrition are supported by international NGOs.
The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 that resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
In Israel’s ensuing military campaign in Gaza, at least 70,942 people — also mostly civilians — have been killed, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
These figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
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