Category Archives: Egypt

Desperate Egypt sells off historic hotels as it dives deeper into debt

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Amid biting austerity and rising inflation, the al-Sisi government is off-loading assets – some to a convicted murderer with Emirati cash

As dusk fell over the verdant grounds of the Marriott Mena House hotel, the reflection of the Great Pyramid of Giza grew darker in a pool built to reflect the last of the seven wonders of the world.

A band played a smooth jazz rendition of the Eagles’ Hotel California on the grassy lawns as guests assembled for dinner, while the staff attempted to project a sense of business as usual, despite the hotel’s recent acquisition by an infamous Egyptian real estate tycoon, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, and two powerful Emirati conglomerates.

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Egypt scraps plan to restore cladding on one of three great pyramids of Giza

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Antiquities authority drops proposal for Menkaure pyramid after review prompted by international outcry

Egypt has scuttled a controversial plan to reinstall ancient granite cladding on the pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest of the three great pyramids of Giza, a committee formed by the country’s tourism minister said in a statement.

Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of the supreme council of antiquities, announced the plan last month, declaring it would be “the project of the century”.

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Egypt building walled enclosure in Sinai for Rafah refugees, photos suggest

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Monitoring group releases evidence of work that appears intended to house Palestinians in event of Israeli assault on city

Egypt has begun building an enclosed area ringed with high concrete walls along its border with Gaza that appears intended to house Palestinians fleeing a threatened Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.

Photos and videos released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR), a monitoring group, show workers using heavy machinery erecting concrete barriers and security towers around a strip of land on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

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Israeli troops launch raid on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza

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Staff say one person killed and eight injured in attack as UN aid chief warns Rafah offensive could cause refugee exodus into Egypt

Israeli forces have raided the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip that is still functioning, amid warnings from the UN aid chief that a threatened ground offensive in Rafah, the area’s last remaining place of relative safety, could trigger an exodus of refugees fleeing into Egypt.

Nasser hospital, in the central town of Khan Younis, was hit directly by tank fire overnight, staff at the medical complex said on Thursday, in an attack that killed one person and injured eight more. Dr Khaled al-Serr, a surgeon at the hospital, said in an Instagram post that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground troops stormed the premises about an hour later and began forcing patients, medical personnel and displaced civilians sheltering at the hospital to flee.

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Officials say progress being made on Gaza ceasefire talks

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US national security spokesperson says talks in Cairo ‘constructive and moving in right direction’

Israel and Hamas are making progress towards a deal that would bring about a ceasefire and free hostages held in the Gaza Strip, officials with knowledge of the talks have said.

The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, speaking as negotiations were held in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, said: “They’ve been constructive and moving in the right direction.”

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‘Our last stop is Rafah’: trapped Palestinians await Israeli onslaught

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Refugees crammed into the border city face a terrifying choice: stay for the expected attack, or flee back north through a war zone

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into the small southern Gaza border city of Rafah are being forced to contemplate being displaced once more as an Israeli offensive looms.

Those who fled to the border city, almost half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, face a terrifying choice: stay in overcrowded Rafah – once home to 280,000 people – and wait for the attack, or risk moving north through an area of continued fighting.

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Hamas mulls ceasefire proposal amid intense fighting across Gaza

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Leader of Hamas heads to Cairo talks, with many families of Israeli hostages pressing for a negotiated release

Heavy bombardment of Gaza continued on Wednesday as the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was expected to arrive in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire proposal in the Israel-Gaza war that would reportedly involve the staged release of Israeli hostages.

A Hamas official said Haniyeh would be in the Egyptian capital for talks on Wednesday or Thursday, as intense fighting was reported in the south of the territory in Khan Younis and in the north in Gaza City.

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Talks on Israel-Hamas hostage deal ‘constructive’ but meaningful gaps remain

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US, Qatari, Israeli and Egyptian officials met in Paris and will continue to discuss options

Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but meaningful gaps remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said.

The statement said the parties would continue to hold discussions this week. “There are still significant gaps in which the parties will continue to discuss this week in additional mutual meetings,” the statement added.

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Egypt backs Somalia in dispute over Ethiopia-Somaliland deal

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Somalia mobilises regional support as Ethiopia considers recognising breakaway region to gain sea access

The president of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has expressed his support for Somalia in a dispute over an offer by the breakaway northern region of Somaliland to give land-locked Ethiopia access to its coast in exchange for recognition of its independence.

In his strongest statement yet on the issue at a press conference in Cairo alongside the president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Sisi said: “My message to Ethiopia is that trying to seize a piece of land to control it is something no one will agree to.”

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Hamas says two Israeli hostages have been killed by Israeli airstrikes

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In unverified video, woman also held captive and speaking under duress says two men have been killed

Hamas has released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages and claimed that they were killed by Israeli airstrikes.

The video showed a female hostage named in Israeli media as Noa Argamani, 26, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed in captivity. It was not clear when or where the video was filmed and there was no independent confirmation of Hamas’s claims.

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Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

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Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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Palestinians desperate to flee Gaza pay thousands in bribes to ‘brokers’

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Fixers with alleged links to Egyptian intelligence are making a fortune in ‘fees’ from people hoping to exit through the Rafah crossing

Palestinians desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help them exit the territory through Egypt, according to a Guardian investigation.

Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large “coordination fees” by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services.

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UK has failed to act to free Alaa Abd el-Fattah from jail in Egypt, family says

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Rishi Sunak told activist’s sister in 2022 that government was ‘totally committed’ to resolving the case

The family of the imprisoned British-Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have said the British government has failed to act to free him, a year after the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, told his sister the government was “totally committed to resolving your brother’s case”.

A figurehead in Egypt’s 2011 uprising, which overthrew Hosni Mubarak as president, Abd el-Fattah spent most of the past decade behind bars for his activism. He was rearrested in 2019 following a brief period out of prison but under police surveillance, and was sentenced in December 2021 to a further five years in detention for spreading “false news undermining national security”, after resharing a social media post about torture.

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Hamas leaders attend Egypt talks as Israeli attacks push deeper into Gaza

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UN says about 100,000 people have arrived in Rafah after intense attacks on Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

A delegation of high-level Hamas leaders is visiting Egypt for talks aimed at bringing the devastating war in Gaza to an end, even as the Israeli military pushes deeper into the centre and south of the strip, displacing tens of thousands of people.

The UN’s humanitarian office said on Friday that over the past few days an estimated 100,000 people had arrived in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town on the border with Egypt, after an intense new ground and aerial offensive around the central town of Deir al-Balah and airstrikes on the southern town of Khan Younis.

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Egypt’s Sisi wins third term as president after amending constitution

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President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wins Egypt election with 89.6% of vote after facing no serious challengers

The president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was voted in for a third term on Monday after an election where he faced no serious challengers, calling the vote a rejection of the “inhumane war” in neighbouring Gaza.

The president was able to claim the top job after Egypt’s constitution was amended in 2019, extending the presidential term to six years from four, and allowing Sisi to stand for a third term.

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Sisi poised to win power again, but Egyptians’ minds are on Gaza

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There’s no chance of a fair election on Sunday, but Egypt president’s weakness on Gaza is showing in a country racked by poverty, corruption and inflation

For Egyptians, the only signs that an election is imminent are the posters of President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi’s face plastered on every available wall and billboard across the country.

The repetitive images of Sisi – always gazing into the distance with a stiff, forced smile – are so ubiquitous that people have turned to the only venue for free expression they have left and have begun making memes of them to share online. One picture that circulated features Jack and Rose from the film Titanic sitting on the deck of the ship surrounded by Sisi’s campaign posters. In another, people joke that a pregnant woman passed so many pictures of Sisi on her way to work that her newborn baby resembled the incumbent president.

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Virginia museum to return 44 stolen or looted works to Egypt, Italy and Turkey

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Virginia Museum of Fine Arts says it received ‘irrefutable evidence’ 44 ancient art objects had been stolen or looted

Virginia’s state-run fine arts museum has begun the process of returning 44 pieces of ancient art to their countries of origin after law enforcement officials presented the institution with what it called “irrefutable evidence” that the works had been stolen or looted.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts announced in a news release on Tuesday that it had “safely delivered” the pieces to the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York, which it said had conducted an inquiry into the artworks as part of a broader investigation, along with the Department of Homeland Security. The DA’s office will facilitate the return of the objects to Italy, Egypt and Turkey, according to the Richmond museum.

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Families criticise UK government’s repatriation guidance in Gaza conflict

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Relative ‘shocked’ by advice for family members who crossed into Egypt to split temporarily and apply for reunification from Britain

Relatives of British citizens recently evacuated from Gaza and those waiting to return to the UK have criticised the government’s repatriation guidance, as UK officials continue to support nationals crossing into Egypt.

Ahmad Abou-Foul’s family safely crossed from Gaza into Egypt on 3 November. He said they were “shocked” after arriving in Cairo when UK immigration officers advised the individuals with British passports to return to the UK with their children, and once there, start a reunification process for their Palestinian spouses.

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UK couple on holiday in Egypt died of carbon monoxide poisoning, coroner rules

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Susan and John Cooper, from Burnley, fell ill after hotel room next door was sprayed for bed bug infestation

A woman whose parents were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning during a holiday to Egypt has said her family is “broken without them”.

John and Susan Cooper, aged 69 and 63 respectively, died after falling ill in their hotel room after a pesticide was sprayed in the room next door to kill bed bugs, a coroner ruled on Friday.

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‘Handed a death sentence’: UK doctor forced to return to Gaza from Egypt

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Foreign Office accused of ‘grotesque failure’ as Dr Ahmed Sabra says he and other UK nationals have been sent back over border

A British consultant cardiologist based in Swansea has said he is being “handed a death sentence” after being forced to return to Gaza over the border from Egypt at the Rafah crossing on Wednesday.

Dr Ahmed Sabra said: “I am making a desperate appeal to the public that hold British values to help us. We are being handed a death sentence. Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world.

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