Will Cairo peace summit be able to deliver easing of tensions in Gaza?

Since the outbreak of the latest round of escalations in the Israel-Hamas conflict, the international community did not manage to summon a meeting yet that had the real potential to have an impact on the bloodshed and ease the situation. After such a summit between the US, Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian leaders got canceled last minute after an explosion at a Gaza hospital, Cairo will hold a peace summit meeting on October 20. Euractiv has assessed the probability of the meeting, which will be held without representatives of Israel, Iran and the US, having a real impact on the situation on the ground in Gaza amid an imminent invading operation by Israeli troops. Caliber.Az reprints this article.

"With Egypt expected to host an international summit on Saturday (20 October) amid growing fears of the Israel-Palestine conflict spilling into a wider Middle East war, expectations are running low as key players are confirmed to be absent from the talks.

The hastily-convened Cairo Peace Summit is expected to bring together several Arab and European leaders from a dozen countries, including top officials from Turkiye, Qatar and Europe, alongside foreign ministers.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose country borders the Gaza Strip, has invited leaders to discuss the crisis as well as the unfolding humanitarian situation, which Cairo is concerned could spill over to its territory.

Summit participants will meet as Israel readies a ground assault on Gaza following the 7 October Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,400 people. More than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s counteroffensive, amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

However, the absence of top representatives from the US, Israel and Iran, or lack of confirmation as of Friday whether major powers China and Russia would attend, has dampened expectations for what the talks can effectively achieve.

Tehran is both an ally of Hamas and of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which many observers fear is poised to enter the war against Israel from the north after initial patched rocket attacks over the past few days.

The United States vetoed a UN resolution on Wednesday calling for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza, which has been under near-constant bombardment since Hamas attacked Israel.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution failed to underscore Israel’s right to self-defence.

European leaders, meanwhile, are split over whether to skip the event given the push from some Arab states for a summit declaration that demands a ceasefire.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will not attend either, while on Friday evening it was still unclear whether French President Emmanuel Macron might join the talks.

European Council President Charles Michel and EU’s chief Josep Borrell are expected to represent the EU in Cairo, EU officials confirmed, although they faced a scramble to get there in time after attending an EU-US summit in Washington on Friday.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not travel to Cairo. A European Commission spokesperson confirmed she was invited by the Egyptians to the summit, but has asked Commission Vice-Presidemt Margaritis Schinas to represent her.

European countries in the past week have struggled to settle on a united approach to the crisis, beyond condemning Hamas’s attack, after days of confusion and mixed messaging.

EU leaders this week agreed on a joint position statement that 'strongly emphasise[s] Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian and international law'.

A senior EU official told reporters there had been discussions about a common summit declaration but there were still 'differences' so it was not clear whether there could be a joint communiqué in the end.

'It is not likely that EU member states present, or any of our like-minded partners, would sign up to a declaration that is in contradiction to our EU position', an EU official said.

Non-European states expected to attend include Qatar, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Iraq, as well as UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will participate in the Cairo summit for peace on Saturday, an official source told Reuters.

Arab countries, meanwhile, have voiced anger at Israel’s unprecedented bombardment and siege of Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.

Egypt has been trying to channel humanitarian relief to Gaza through the Rafah crossing, the one access point in or out not controlled by Israel, but aid has piled up on the Egyptian side.

Egyptian state-linked media on Thursday said the crossing will open Friday after US President Joe Biden struck a deal with Egypt and Israel to allow aid in.

'We need food, water, medicine and fuel now. We need it at scale and we need it to be sustained, it is not one small operation that is required', Guterres said in Cairo, as calls for aid passage mounted a day before the Cairo peace talks.

'In plain terms, that means humanitarians need to be able to get aid in and they need to be able to distribute it safely', Guterres added.

But Al-Sisi said on Wednesday also said Egyptians in their millions would oppose any forced displacement of Palestinians into Sinai, adding that any such move would turn the Egyptian peninsula into a base for attacks against Israel.

Cairo’s position reflects Arab fears that Palestinians could again flee or be forced from their homes en masse, as they were during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

Israeli officials, including the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have said they would aim to wipe out Hamas in retribution for the attack.

But Israel is seen as not having an obvious endgame, with no clear plan for how to govern the Palestinian enclave afterwards".