Egypt on the sidelines as Israel's focus shifts from Gaza to Lebanon

With little influence over Israel, all El Sisi's government can do is persuade the US to stop the war in Lebanon or stop Israel from destroying south Lebanon like it did in Gaza

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi says the country aims to pursue a regional policy 'defined by balance, moderation and objectivity'. EPA

With the focus of international diplomacy having shifted to Lebanon, Gaza mediator and regional powerhouse Egypt is uncustomarily finding itself on the sidelines, watching the Middle East ominously sliding into a broader conflict that it can do little, or maybe nothing, to prevent.

Closer to home, the de facto suspension of negotiations to reach a Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages held by Hamas has left Egypt without a platform to press its case that its one-time nemesis Israel must withdraw its military from the Salah Al Din border strip on the Palestinian side of the Egypt-Gaza border, also known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

Although bound to Israel by a peace treaty in 1979 and possessing the largest army in the Middle East, Egypt has had little influence on Israel. In equal terms it has no influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon, traditionally restricting its contacts there to the government, which has to all practical purposes relinquished war and peace decisions to the Iranian-backed group.

Egyptian officials have been in touch with their Iranian counterparts to try to de-escalate the situation in Lebanon, sources say, as well as Cairo's role alongside fellow mediators the US and Qatar in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

“But no one is listening at this point, Egypt is not seen at the moment,” said one of the sources. “A diplomatic or military miracle is needed to stop the aggression against Lebanon. All that Egypt can do is to try to persuade Washington to stop Israel or at least stop it from destroying south Lebanon the way it did in Gaza.”

Israel on Monday night claimed it has launched a ground assault in south Lebanon after two weeks of intense bombardment in which Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, many of his top commanders and hundreds of civilians have been killed. The UN peacekeeping force Unifil said there had been no ground invasion by Israel, however.

Egypt's approach towards the Middle East crisis was summed up by Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the general-turned-President who since taking office a decade ago has overseen a multibillion-dollar drive to modernise the nation's armed forces and project its military might as a deterrence.

“Egypt is keen on pursuing a [regional] policy defined by balance, moderation and objectivity,” he told police cadets on Sunday. Mr El Sisi delivered a similar message to army cadets the following day, saying Egypt worked to “end conflicts rather than escalate them”.

The conflict in Lebanon also reinforces the narrative embraced by the Egyptian President that the strife around his country – in Gaza to the east, Libya to the west and Sudan to the south – makes it imperative for Egyptians to close ranks and unite behind his government.

“Egypt is in good shape," he said. "Things are stable and will get better so long as Egyptians are stable, united and assured that the Egyptian state is running affairs in a way that safeguards our country and the region as well as it can.”

Israel captured the Salah Al Din corridor, including the Palestinian side of the Gaza-Egypt crossing at Rafah, in May, a move Cairo sees as a violation of the 1979 peace treaty – viewed widely as a cornerstone of regional stability – and relevant accords subsequently reached.

The sources said Cairo has had no direct, high-level contact with Israeli officials in nearly three weeks. This contrasts with the near weekly meetings that had taken place for close to a year between top Egyptian intelligence officials and their Israeli counterparts in the Mossad and Shin Bet, its domestic counterpart, in what proved to be fruitless Gaza ceasefire negotiations.

Israel claims that underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have kept Hamas's arsenal replenished and that its military must remain in the strip to deny the militant group its lifeline.

Egypt has angrily rejected these claims, insisting that its military destroyed the tunnels nearly a decade ago. Since May, it has closed the Rafah crossing and is adamant it will remain shut until a Palestinian body, not necessarily drawn from Hamas or Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, is running it on the Gaza side.

Egypt has also had little contact with Hamas leaders and top lieutenants in Gaza, whom the sources say have been reluctant to use their mobile phones after scores of Hezbollah members were killed and thousands injured last month when their pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in a sophisticated attack widely blamed on Israel, which never claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Another source of alarm in Egypt is that Israel may be tempted to take advantage of the shift of international focus from the Gaza war and move ahead with some of its security plans for the enclave, like the creation of a buffer zone in northern Gaza to prevent Hamas fighters from returning to the area.

Already, the sources said, Israel is taking concrete steps to control the distribution of humanitarian assistance and postwar reconstruction efforts, both to rob Hamas and its allies of any role that could perpetuate their influence among Gaza's 2.3 million residents, and to strengthen the standing of its potential, anti-Hamas allies in the territory.

They cited the construction of warehouses in Gaza and the setting up of elaborate checkpoints on a road it has built called Netsarim, which cuts the enclave in half.

Egypt has long viewed the Gaza Strip, which it administered between 1948 and 1967, as part of its national security sphere. More recently, it has gone to great lengths to monitor extremist groups there to ensure they never join forces with its home-grown militants in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.

The sources said Egypt was also making little headway in contact with the Houthis in Yemen in a bid to persuade the Iranian-backed group to halt their attacks on Red Sea shipping, which they launched in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Contact with Tehran, including a meeting in New York on Saturday between the Egyptian and Iranian foreign ministers, has also failed to stop the attacks, said the sources.

Mr El Sisi said this week the Houthis' attacks on Red Sea vessels have significantly reduced Egypt's revenue from the Suez Canal, a strategic waterway linking the Red and Mediterranean seas. He put the losses over the past six or seven months at $6 billion.