Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told his US counterpart Donald Trump on Saturday that the world was relying on him “to reach a permanent and historic peace agreement” to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Saturday’s phone call was the first between the two leaders since Trump repeatedly floated a plan in recent days to relocate Palestinians from Gaza into Jordan and Egypt, which Sissi and other Arab leaders have strongly rejected.
The Egyptian readout of the call did not mention the proposal.
The statement from Sissi’s office said he and Trump extended mutual invitations for state visits during the call, and stressed the importance of continued “coordination and cooperation.”
Sissi also noted that “the international community is counting on President Trump’s ability to reach a permanent and historic peace agreement that ends the conflict that has existed in the region for decades,” the statement said.
Trump last month suggested a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, saying last Saturday he would “like Egypt to take people,” as well as Jordan.
At the time, he said he would speak to Sissi the following day, but Egypt later denied the call had taken place.
Both Egypt and Jordan have rejected the idea.
On Wednesday, Sissi called the proposal “an injustice that we cannot take part in,” but said he was “determined to work with President Trump, who seeks to achieve the desired peace based on the two-state solution.”
Trump, however, insisted again on Thursday that Egypt and Jordan “will do it,” adding: “We do a lot for them.”
Egypt is a key US ally in the region, and was the only country besides Israel to receive an exemption from Trump’s foreign aid freeze last month.
Since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 — killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, triggering war in the Gaza Strip — Egypt has played a delicate balancing act, maintaining its mediator role in the conflict while positioning itself as a champion of the Palestinian cause.
“If I were to ask this of the Egyptian people, all of them would take to the streets to say no,” Sissi said on Wednesday of the proposed plan.
At a meeting in Cairo on Saturday, top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar also rejected any forcible displacement of Palestinians.
“We affirm our rejection of [any attempts] to compromise Palestinians’ unalienable rights, whether through settlement activities, or evictions or annex of land or through vacating the land from its owners… in any form or under any circumstances or justifications,” the joint statement read.
The signatories added that they were looking forward to working with Trump’s administration to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on a two-state solution.
On Friday, state-linked media in Egypt broadcast footage of people protesting near Egypt’s border with Gaza against Palestinian displacement.
The readout from Sissi’s office on Saturday did not mention the proposal, but said the call “witnessed a positive dialogue” between the presidents on the implementation of the hostage-ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, brokered by Egypt, the US and Qatar.
The deal, which went into effect last month, envisions a three-stage ceasefire that is ultimately intended to establish a “sustainable calm” in the Strip, but the sides have so far only agreed to a first phase.
So far, 13 Israeli hostages have been freed as part of the deal, which mandates the release of 33 so-called “humanitarian” hostages during its first 42-day phase, and Israel has released hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners.