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On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi defended his nation’s role in attempting to mediate a truce deal between Hamas and Israel.
Hamas has accused him of putting forward a deal which was favorable to Israel. Sisi, unlike predecessor Mohammed Morsi, has sought to isolate the Palestinian movement in Gaza. The Egyptian government had been working to contain the situation before it became a full-blown conflict on July 8th, Sisi said.
“Egypt has sacrificed, for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinians, 100,000 martyrs”, he said, referring to the casualties of Egypt’s wars against Israel from 1948 and 1973 before it signed a peace treaty in 1979.
“So it is difficult for anyone to engage in one-upmanship, not just regarding (our role) with the Palestinian brothers but also the Arab region”, he said in a televised speech to mark the military overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952.
Since Morsi was overthrown in July 2013, Egypt has butted heads with Qatar and Turkey, both of which had backed the Muslim Brotherhood and have been critical of Sisi’s stance on the Gaza conflict.
Turkish Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdogan had called Sisi a “tyrant” who couldn’t be trusted to negotiate a truce deal, while Hamas has demanded a role for Doha and Ankara in the truce deal.
Morsi had mediated a truce deal to end the eight-day war with Israel in 2012. Sisi has said that his truce deal would give Hamas its demand of ending the eight-year blockade of Gaza once peace is restored. However, Hamas insists that on a comprehensive agreement which includes all concessions it had asked for before it agrees to a peace deal.
It has also demanded that Egypt open the Rafah crossing with Gaza, the enclave’s only border crossing which isn’t controlled by Israel.
