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A high-level Hamas delegation has held talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo, and met about 70 Palestinian detainees freed by Israel and sent into exile as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal, sources told The National on Tuesday.
Hamas delegates met senior officials from Egypt's intelligence agency on Monday night and again on Tuesday, the sources said. A Hamas statement said the group's leaders met the agency's director, Gen Hassan Rashad, on Tuesday.
Tuesday's talks reviewed the "mechanisms" for implementing the Gaza deal and the entry into the war-battered enclave of humanitarian supplies. They also focused on the postwar governance of the Palestinian territory through a "consensus government" or a "societal committee", the sources said, without giving details.
The Hamas delegation is being led by the little-known but powerful head of its Shura Council, the Turkey-based Mohammed Darwish. Also on the team are some of the group's most prominent leaders in exile, including Khaled Meshaal, Khalil Al Hayyah, Zaher Jabareen, Nazar Awadallahm Mohammed Nasr and Ghazi Mohammed, according to the sources.
The visit by the Hamas leaders comes after US President Donald Trump repeated on Monday his desire to move Palestinians from Gaza to “safer” locations including Egypt or Jordan. At the weekend, he called on Egypt and Jordan to take people from Gaza to “clean out the whole thing”.
Mr Trump's comments sparked a flurry of behind-the-scenes diplomacy across much of the Arab world to formulate a unified stance to reject the suggestions, and the issue figured prominently in the talks between Hamas and Egyptian officials, said the sources.
Senior officials from Egypt's spy agency have traditionally dealt with issues about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Along with delegates from Qatar and the US, the Egyptians mediated between Israel and Hamas for more than a year before a deal was reached on January 15 and came into force four days later.
The Palestinian detainees were released in exchange for four female Israeli soldiers who were among the 250 people kidnapped by Hamas fighters when they attacked southern Israel in October 2023.
Another 130 imprisoned Palestinians were also released as part of the same exchange but the 70 in Egypt had been serving long or life jail terms in Israel and, under the ceasefire and hostages deal, Israel and Hamas agreed they would live in exile outside Palestinian territories for a period of between three to five years.
In response to the US President's Gaza remarks, Arab nations will probably call for an emergency meeting of the Cairo-based Arab League, and possibly a summit, in the hope that it would place sufficient pressure on Mr Trump to make a U-turn on his proposals or allow the subject to be forgotten.
Mr Trump, who returned to office for a second term on January 20, said he wanted Jordan and Egypt, which are bound by peace treaties with Israel, to take people from Gaza, a territory he said had become a “demolition site”.
“Over the centuries it's had many, many conflicts, that site,” he added. “And I don't know, something has to happen.” Gaza's inhabitants could be moved “temporarily, or could be long term”, he said.
His comments were met with opposition from across the Arab world including Hamas and its rival Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank. The Arab League has also rejected the suggestion.
Most of Gaza's residents have been displaced, often several times, by Israel's war in the coastal enclave which started in October 2023.
Small street demonstrations to protest Mr Trump's suggestions for Gazans are due to take place later on Tuesday in central Cairo and the Egyptian half of Rafah on the nation's border with Gaza, the sources said.
A statement signed by a group of politicians and academics led by Egypt's former foreign minister and Arab League chief Amr Moussa said that any displacement of the Palestinians contravenes their right to self-determination. They said their forced eviction would amount to ethnic cleansing.
