Egypt threatens to void peace deal with Israel

FE Team | Published: February 13, 2024 23:17:34

A girl sits by packed belongings near a tent at a camp before fleeing from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday — AFP

JERUSALEM, Feb 13 (AP/Reuters): It was a warm handshake between the unlikeliest of statesmen, conducted under the beaming gaze of U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Sunlight streamed through the trees at Camp David, Maryland, as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin solidified a landmark agreement that has allowed over 40 years of peace between Israel and Egypt. It has served as an important source of stability in a volatile region.
That peace has held through two Palestinian uprisings and a series of wars between Israel and Hamas. But now, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to send Israeli troops into Rafah, a city in Gaza on the border with Egypt, the Egyptian government is threatening to void the agreement.
Gazans look to
Cairo truce talks
Israeli tanks shelled the eastern sector of Rafah city overnight, residents said. Many other people are believed to be buried under rubble. Supplies of food, water and other essentials are running out and diseases are spreading.
US, Egyptian, Israeli and Qatari officials were expected to meet in Cairo on Tuesday to seek a truce in Gaza as more than a million civilians crammed into a southern corner of the Palestinian enclave, waiting in fear for an Israeli assault.
Amid growing international concern over the plight of civilians, Israeli tanks shelled the eastern sector of Rafah city overnight, residents said, although the anticipated ground offensive did not appear to have started.
US trying to broker 6
weeks truce:: Biden
WASHINGTON, Feb 13, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The United States is working to negotiate a ceasefire of "at least six weeks" in the Gaza Strip as part of a wider deal that would also involve the release of hostages, President Joe Biden said Monday.
"The United States is working on a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, which would bring (an) immediate and sustained period of calm to Gaza for at least six weeks," Biden said at the White House, with Jordanian King Abdullah II at his side.
Biden also said civilians sheltering in the southern city of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, "need to be protected" as Israel considers a ground incursion in the densely crowded area where more than a million Palestinians are trapped.