As the first Israeli missile landed on the besieged Gaza Strip, marking the start of an 11-day military offensive, Egypt saw a \u201ctremendous opportunity\u201d to assert itself politically in the region and, as many analysts say, to prove itself to the new US administration.<\/p>\n
US President Joe Biden thanked Egypt for \u201cits successful diplomacy\u201d in brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the group that governs Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Egyptian regime wishes to illustrate to the Biden administration that they can still handle the \u2018Palestinian file\u2019, and that they are willing to follow the US guidance in this regard,\u201d Alaa Tartir, policy adviser at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s reliance on Egypt comes as it is one of the few countries in the region that engages with both Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n
Egyptian diplomats were engaged in a flurry of diplomatic visits that eventually helped secure a ceasefire after the Israeli bombardment campaign killed 253 Palestinians, bolstering its regional role. The Gulf state of Qatar also played a role in the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry received his Israeli counterpart in Cairo on Sunday to build on a more \u201cpermanent ceasefire\u201d. Later, the country\u2019s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel visited Israel and then travelled to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders \u2013 the first visit since 2017.<\/p>\n
The post Egypt used Gaza ceasefire to \u2018improve its standing in Washington\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Al-Shabaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on Al-Shabaka<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Egypt tried to prove to Washington it can still handle the \u2018Palestinian file\u2019 when it brokered the latest Israel-Hamas ceasefire, experts say<\/p>\n<\/header>\n The post Egypt used Gaza ceasefire to \u2018improve its standing in Washington\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Al-Shabaka<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190966,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190965\/revisions\/190966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}