Egypt

Egypt has been ranked as the leading African country in global soft power influence for 2024, according to a report by Business Insider Africa. The report, based on the Global Soft Power Index published by Brand Finance, places Egypt 39th worldwide with a soft power score of 44.9 points.

South Africa and Morocco follow Egypt in the continent’s rankings, securing second and third place with scores of 43.7 and 40.6 points, respectively. The index also noted that “Egypt secures the gold for its ‘rich heritage’” while the UAE ranks number one in the Middle East and 10th globally. Globally, the US leads with a record-high score of 78.8 points, an increase from 74.8 in 2023.

The Global Soft Power Index assesses the perceptions of all 193 UN member states, evaluating countries based on eight pillars: business and trade, international relations, education and science, culture and heritage, governance, media and communication, sustainable future, and people and values.

Soft power is defined as a country’s ability to influence others through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion. Countries like Egypt are leveraging diplomacy, culture, and education to enhance their global reputation and build goodwill.

Meanwhile, China which sits on third place on the global index has been expanding its influence in Africa over the past decade and is currently hosting the China-Africa forum, with African leaders keen to explore investment and loan opportunities. China, the world’s number two economy, is Africa’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade hitting $167.8 billion in the first half of this year.

READ: Egypt’s Al-Azhar condemns Israeli offensive in occupied West Bank

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing into Gaza, speaking with volunteers delivering aid to the enclave. The former special envoy for the UN refugee agency also met with Palestinians displaced by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Almost everything was bad.

Every January I try to escape Britain’s gloom for sun and wine that doesn’t cost £8 a glass. I convince my long-suffering husband to log off and join me on my yearly escapades to sunny and cheaper places like Sri Lanka and Costa Rica. In January 2025 I was itching for a new destination and ‘the Egypt saga’ was set in motion.

Cut back to Christmas 2024 when, fuelled by mulled wine and poor judgement, I was doom-scrolling and found a deal that stopped me in my tracks: almost four weeks in an all-inclusive resort in Hurghada, flights included, for just under £1,700 for both of us. I booked immediately. No research. No caution. I was so giddy with the adrenaline of having bagged a bargain I forgot the first rule of resort booking: always check the reviews. Always.

“How bad could it possibly be though?” I dreamed as I packed. As a freelancer I intended to ‘work’ during my extended jaunt – preferably with a pina colada in hand like I have seen other smug ‘world citizens’ do on Instagram. My husband stayed suspiciously quiet.

Our budget booking promised a “four-star resort and aqua park and private beach” so I was fully expecting spacious, stylish rooms with plush bedding, multiple delicious dining options, and peaceful pools and spas to unwind in after a busy morning doing important writing and sharing my new life on Instagram. In a plot twist no-one saw coming what we actually got was a rundown bargain-bin resort that clearly hadn’t been updated since 1987 with the ‘private beach’ a bus ride away.

While certain parts were pleasant (I really liked the towering palm trees, our room balcony, and the abundance of resident cats) there were vast areas that needed an update and some serious deep cleaning.

Shabby and dirty room decor, exposed wiring, freezing cold pools, and screeching groups of budget holiday punters who were already drunk by 10am. It seems Egypt’s idea of four stars is very different from mine. “Swanky”, apparently, is a relative term.

Because I’m “annoyingly positive” (according to my family) I earnestly declared that we would make “the best of it” while stepping over broken paving slabs as Pharrell Williams played on loop. However my eternal optimism eventually faltered when I tried to work.

The “free wifi” was confined to the smoke-filled chaotic lobby where everyone was glued to YouTube on their phones. You couldn’t send so much as an email as the connection was utterly dire. This meant we had to buy local sim cards with data, which felt like being back in the dial-up era. Work completely stalled so we headed to the pool, abandoning all hope of finishing my mountain of assignments. Future me could sort that out.

If blaring 2010-era music was stressful being hassled by resort staff while lounging by an icy pool was worse. Headphones, fake naps, and avoiding eye contact didn’t help. Every 20 seconds someone asked if we wanted a photoshoot, a massage, or tickets to the resort party. Yes, a party you’ve technically already paid for. Joy. To be fair I know next to nothing about all-inclusives. Most of my travel has been DIY so I was unprepared for many aspects of resort life.

I totally appreciate that staff earn most of their money from commissions but I’m only human; I have only so much patience for endless sales pitches when I’m trying to relax and drink lukewarm wine at 11am.

Back in our extremely basic room (certainly no Egyptian cotton sheets here) sleep escaped us as deafening music went on into the early hours. I’m pretty sure I now know all the lyrics to Rihanna’s Pon de Replay. Come, Mr DJ, won’t you turn the music down? I am old and tired.

Food-wise I also hadn’t considered how eating the same reheated trays of dubious pasta, watery stews, and charred meat from the all-inclusive buffet could get quite repetitive. And, yes, prompt several frantic loo dashes.

On top of that there was an awkward expectation to tip every time we sat down to eat even though the whole point of “all-inclusive” is that you’ve already paid to serve yourself from the questionable buffet.

Salvation did not arrive in the form of alcohol. The wine tasted like dishwater, the cocktails like ground-down Fruit Pastilles, yet I remain in awe of my fellow Brits who somehow managed to down enough terrible booze to render a rhino comatose.

The worst part, really, is that I’ve been to Egypt’s historic capital, Cairo, enough to know that Egyptian food and drink are worth celebrating.

Koshari, ful medames, tameya, grilled kebabs, stuffed vegetables, molokhiyya: I was ready to feast like a queen. Instead local options at the resort were sparse and what they did serve was a pale shadow of the rich, fragrant dishes I’d enjoyed in Cairo. One mediocre bite and I mourned my lost koshari (a bonkers mix of grains, legumes, and pasta).

So why, you might reasonably ask, did we not call it quits, check out, and head home after failing spectacularly to live the #nomad dream?

To take a short break from being a negative Nancy what actually saved us from despair was the town of Hurghada itself. This seaside strip is the second biggest town on the Red Sea and is one of Egypt’s busiest holiday destinations. Home to world-renowned coral reefs, bazaars, bars, restaurants, and hotels there’s actually plenty to do once you step outside the resort. Rather than wallow in buyer’s remorse we spent as much time as possible exploring Sakalla, the frenetic town centre, Hurghada’s marina, and the kaleidoscope-coloured coral reefs.

Who needs tacky poolside entertainment when, for around £25 each, you can hop on a dive boat and swim among shoals of fish and even pods of dolphins as you explore vibrant coral reefs? I honestly couldn’t believe that we witnessed dolphins in the wild in turquoise waters for less than the cost of a sad lunch in Britain.

This is what you need to come to Hurghada for – not cheap resorts but instead to float in clear waters as clownfish, angelfish, and parrotfish dart in and out of reefs.

Over in Hurghada’s surprisingly swish marina we discovered a large yacht harbour lined with shops with restaurants and buzzing bars offering outdoor seating. Here we escaped the beige hotel buffet and feasted on meaty shawarma and sweet, flaky baklava.

There are also plenty of excursions and day trips from Hurghada to keep you busy. Instead of paying the resort’s extortionate prices we haggled with local operators like seasoned diplomats. Best decision of the trip.

We booked a day-long desert safari by quad bike and 4×4 vehicle, including dinner and stargazing in a traditional Bedouin village, for around £23 each including pickup.

Hurghada sits at the edge of the Eastern Desert – a vast sweep of volcanic hills, sand flats, stony plateaus, and wind-carved gullies that look like a film set. It stretches from the Nile to the Red Sea and is where tourists head for quad biking, camel riding, and desert camps.

First they handed me my own quad bike. Within minutes I was tearing across the desert like I’d been cast in Mad Max, sand smacking me in the face as I tried to remember whether I’d purchased travel insurance. The desert rolled out around us in every direction: golden ridges, jagged red mountains, and the glorious sound of silence.

After my brief yet glorious action-hero era we swapped the quad bikes for a jeep. The driver treated dunes like a Top Gear challenge, launching us over rises and plummeting into valleys with the latent enthusiasm of a man who has never Googled “spinal compression injury”.

The scenery was astonishing: jagged dark-red mountains in the distance, rippled sand glowing gold, and long stretches of valley that made Britain feel very far away indeed.

Eventually, after enough bumps to rearrange my internal organs, we reached a small Bedouin village where we sipped sweet tea, learned about desert life, and watched a spectacular sunset.

As the sun dropped behind the mountains the whole landscape exploded in colour and, for the first time for the entire trip, I actually stopped complaining.

But the serenity didn’t last. Because eventually we had to return to our subpar resort where music boomed, food was abysmal, and the pool was arctic cold. And that’s when it hit me – perhaps the issue wasn’t Egypt.

The problem was my delusional belief that I could be a ‘digital nomad’ in a super-budget place where the wifi barely loads a weather app. Instagram told me I could work carefree from a sun lounger, cocktail in hand, living my best life. Reality suggests I need an actual desk, a functioning internet connection, and maybe fewer drunk tourists vomiting into a nearby plant pot. Yup, British people take all-inclusive bars extremely seriously.

Here’s the thing I should have known by now. In travel, as in life, you get exactly what you pay for. During my 20s, while backpacking on the cheap, I stayed in three-dollar-a-night hostels with sanitary conditions so questionable the Red Cross would have intervened.

I’m older now though. I like comfort and have learnt the hard way that “four-star” can mean very different things depending on the destination.

As an introduction to resort life this was certainly character-building. And while Hurghada itself was brilliant I have accepted that working in all-inclusive is a fantasy best left to influencers who only have to upload a single staged #blessed photo and lie down on the lounger again.

It’s safe to say that lessons have been learned and my ego has been checked. This travel writer has been suitably humbled and will do better. Next time I’ll stick to my DIY trips, read the fine print, and stop pretending a resort pool is a suitable workspace.

Mohamed Salah has scored as 10-man Egypt have beaten South Africa 1-0 in Agadir to become the first qualifiers for the knockout stage of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The Liverpool star converted a penalty on 45 minutes on Friday, and South Africa were denied a spot kick late in the second half when Yasser Ibrahim appeared to handle the ball inside the box.

Salah came to Morocco after not starting in five Liverpool matches and his omission leading to an outburst against manager Arne Slot.

Egypt were reduced to 10 men in first-half added time when right back Mohamed Hany was shown a second yellow card for a stamp, followed by a red.

After two rounds in Group B, record seven-time champions Egypt have six points and are guaranteed a top-two finish in the group stage and a place in the round of 16.

South Africa have three points and Angola and Zimbabwe one each after they drew 1-1 in Marrakesh earlier on Friday.

The first chance fell to Salah after 11 minutes, but he could not move forward quickly enough to connect with a low cross from Hany.

That the majority of the crowd were supporting the Pharaohs became obvious soon after when the Burundi referee ignored Zizo’s appeals for a free kick and loud whistling enveloped the stadium.

When Salah delivered a free kick into the heart of the South African area, three Egyptians darted forward, but none could connect with the ball.

Midway through the opening half, a pattern had developed. Egypt were pushing forward regularly while South Africa defended with calmness and solid tackling.

When South Africa’s Teboho Mokoena fouled Omar Marmoush just outside the D, he was yellow-carded. However, the Manchester City striker fired the resultant free kick wide.

As the first half progressed, the sun broke out in the southern coastal city – a welcome sight for players and spectators with many earlier group matches staged in torrential rain.

A rare South Africa attack ended disappointingly as Lyle Foster struck a weak shot that was comfortably saved by 37-year-old Mohamed El Shenawy.

Awarded a free kick close to the touchline, South Africa performed an intricate, multipass move that ended tamely as El Shenawy clutched a cross.

Salah was being closely policed by Aubrey Modiba, and as half-time drew near, the Liverpool star retreated into the Egyptian half to retain possession.

Then, as the Egypt captain chased a loose ball with Khuliso Mudau, the South African right back raised his left arm, striking Salah’s left eye.

Amid Egyptian protests, the Burundian referee viewed the incident on a VAR monitor and pointed to the penalty spot.

A lengthy delay before the kick was taken could not have eased the nerves of Salah, but he comfortably converted the penalty as Ronwen Williams dived in the wrong direction.

More drama erupted in added time when Hany stamped on Mokoena, leading to a second yellow card for the defender.

South Africa, with a numerical advantage, attacked more as the second half progressed, but Egypt came close to a second goal with Williams foiling substitute Emam Ashour after a quick free kick.

El Shenawy displayed his agility with 15 minutes remaining, using his right hand to tip to safety a low shot from Foster. It was one of several saves that kept Egypt ahead.

Angola and Zimbabwe keep alive AFCON hopes

Veteran Knowledge Musona scored as Zimbabwe came from behind to draw 1-1 with Angola in Marrakesh to kick off the second round of AFCON matches earlier in the day.

Gelson Dala put Angola ahead midway through the first half, and recalled Musona levelled deep in first-half added time.

A draw in Group B suited neither team, leaving both two points adrift of joint leaders Egypt and South Africa after having played one match more.

Only the top two finishers in each group automatically qualify for the knockout phase. The best four third-placed teams from the six mini-leagues also will advance.

Bill Antonio wasted a good chance to give Zimbabwe an early lead when he blazed wide from close range before a small crowd.

Angola recovered quickly to establish control and took the lead after 24 minutes through Qatar-based striker Dala.

A superb lobbed pass from To Carneiro dropped in front of Dala inside the box, and he squeezed the ball between the near post and 40-year-old goalkeeper Washington Arubi.

Musona, one of four changes to the Zimbabwe lineup after a 2-1 loss to Egypt in Agadir four days earlier, became increasingly involved as the Warriors sought an equaliser.

Musona wasted a free kick opportunity by hitting the ball into the defensive wall, then shot wide, much to the frustration of Romanian coach Marian Marinica, who repeatedly shook his head.

Hugo Marques, the 39-year-old Angola goalkeeper, had his head heavily bandaged before continuing after a collision with an opponent.

The perseverance of Musona finally paid off six minutes into added time at the end of the opening half when he equalised.

After Angola were dispossessed in midfield, Zimbabwe counterattacked swiftly, and a superb pass found Musona inside the box.

He struck a slow shot between the legs of Carneiro and just wide of the outstretched right leg of Marques into the net.

As both sides sought a second goal and the lead, Marques rescued Angola 12 minutes from the end of regular time with an acrobatic one-hand save of an attempt by substitute Tawanda Chirewa.

Mohamed Salah puts Liverpool controversy ‌behind him with dramatic winner against Zimbabwe in their AFCON opener.

Mohamed Salah snatched a dramatic stoppage-time winner as Egypt came from behind to beat Zimbabwe 2-1 in their first fixture at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Morocco on Monday.

Egypt’s captain, starting his first game after four successive matches ⁠on the bench at Liverpool, fired home a left-footed effort in the 91st minute to earn the seven-time champions a ​late victory after Zimbabwe had stunned them by going ahead in the first half.

Egypt laid an early ‍siege to Zimbabwe’s goal, but it was the underdogs who netted first through Prince Dube in the 20th minute.

It was left to Egypt’s Premier League contingent of Omar Marmoush, who equalised in the 64th minute, and talisman Salah to see them to a last-gasp victory.

Salah ‍had come into the ⁠tournament in Morocco under the spotlight following a fiery outburst after being dropped by the Premier League champions, and struggled to find his rhythm for most of the match at the Grande Stade d’Agadir. When it counted, however, he swept home the winner to see Egypt join South Africa, who beat Angola 2-1 earlier in Marrakesh, at the top of Group B.

It was as much as Egypt deserved, breaking a run of six successive draws over the last two editions of the Cup of Nations.

They had four good chances in the ​opening 10 minutes as they put Zimbabwe under intense pressure but fell behind when Emmanuel ‌Jalai fed the ball inside for Dube, who turned in possession and placed his effort into the bottom left corner.

It could have been 2-0 as Daniel Msendami’s pace set up a scrambled chance for Washington Navaya that Egypt goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy managed to gather before it could ‌be bundled over the line.

Marmoush sole effect

Marmoush equalised in the 64th minute, picking up a long pass on the left wing before cutting inside and firing home with his right ‌foot from an acute angle for a superb solo goal.

“We created many ⁠chances without being able to score early, but in the end everything went well,” Marmoush said.

“We kept a good mindset and finished the match strongly. We will learn from everything that happened in tonight’s game.”

Substitute Ahmed Zizo should have headed home at the back post from Mohamed Hamdy’s inviting cross ‌but put his effort wide, and missed again four minutes from the end when Salah teed him up with a good chance.

It was left to Salah to secure the three points, holding off his marker to bring the ball under control ‍before steering it home for his first goal since early last month.

In the next set of Group B fixtures, Egypt meet South Africa in Agadir on Boxing Day while Zimbabwe and Angola clash on Friday in Marrakesh.

Liverpool and Egypt star forward Mohamed Salah is centred on winning his first Africa Cup of Nations title.

Egypt captain Mohamed Salah ‌has put aside his travails at Liverpool and is focused on Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) ‍success with his national ‍team, coach Hossam Hassan said on Sunday.

Egypt’s talisman is at the tournament in Morocco on the back of a fiery outburst after being dropped by the Premier League champions, but his comments and subsequent apology to teammates have had no impact on his form, Hassan ⁠said ahead of Egypt’s opening Group B match against Zimbabwe in Agadir on Monday.

“Salah’s morale in training is ​very high, as if he were just starting out with the national team, and ‍I believe he will have a great tournament with his country,” said the coach.

At 33, it is arguably Salah’s last chance to win an elusive trophy with Egypt and add international honours to an impressive collection of medals at club ‍level.

“I believe Salah ⁠will be among the best players at the tournament, and he will remain an icon and one of the best players in the world.

“I support him technically and morally, because we cannot forget that Salah needs to win the Africa Cup of Nations,” Hassan added.

Liverpool struggles on the backburner

Salah goes into Monday’s match having last started for Liverpool in their 4-1 home loss to PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League at the end of November.

He was dropped for the next game against West ​Ham United, and after a draw with Leeds United on December 6, lashed ‌out at the club and Liverpool coach Arne Slot, telling journalists he felt he had been made a scapegoat for their poor start to the season and suggested that he may not have long left at Anfield.

Hassan said he had kept in ‌touch with his captain throughout the controversy.

“There was constant communication with Mohamed Salah during what I don’t want to call a crisis because any player ‌can have a difference of opinion with his coach at his ⁠club.”

Salah has not scored since Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Aston Villa at the start of November, including an outing with Egypt in a friendly against Uzbekistan last month.

“The same situation happened with Salah when he went through a period of not scoring goals with ‌Liverpool,” Hassan told reporters.

“Then he returned to the right path through the national team, and as a result, he came back at a level even better than before. I believe he will deliver a strong ‍tournament alongside his teammates.”

Salah has twice been a Cup of Nations runner-up, in 2017 and 2021. Egypt have won a record seven AFCON titles, but their last success was in 2010.

The talks between the four countries lauded the first stage of the truce, including expanded humanitarian assistance, return of captives, force withdrawals and reduction in hostilities.

The United States, Egypt, Qatar and Turkiye have urged the parties to the Gaza ceasefire to honour their commitments and show restraint, the chief US envoy says after talks in the US city of Miami.

Senior officials from the four mediator countries met Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, on Friday to review the first phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on October 10, according to a joint statement released on Saturday.

The meeting was held against the backdrop of ongoing Israeli attacks on the enclave. The Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said that six people were killed on Friday when an Israeli strike hit a school housing displaced people, raising the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire since the deal took effect to about 400.

“We reaffirm our full commitment to the entirety of the President’s [Trump’s] 20-point peace plan and call on all parties to uphold their obligations, exercise restraint, and cooperate with monitoring arrangements,” Witkoff said in a statement posted on X.

First phase of truce

Saturday’s statement cited progress yielded in the first stage of the peace agreement, including expanded humanitarian assistance, the return of captives’ bodies, partial force withdrawals and a reduction in hostilities.

It called for “the near-term establishment and operationalisation” of a transitional administration, which is due to happen in the second phase of the agreement, and said that consultations would continue in the coming weeks over its implementation.

Under the truce deal’s terms, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, an interim authority is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas, and an international stabilisation force is to be deployed.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed hope that countries would contribute troops for the stabilisation force, but also urged the disarmament of Hamas, warning the process would unravel unless that happened.

Hamas statement

A meeting was also held between Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin in Istanbul on Saturday.

In a statement from Hamas after the meeting, the group said it was committed to abiding by the ceasefire agreement, despite Israeli violations.

“The delegation stressed the urgent need to halt these continuous violations,” the statement added.

“The delegation also reviewed the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip with the onset of winter, emphasising the critical priority of urgently bringing in tents, caravans, and heavy equipment to save our people from death by cold and drowning, given the destruction of infrastructure and homes.”

Winter storms have been worsening the conditions for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, as aid agencies warn that Israeli restrictions are preventing lifesaving assistance from reaching people across the besieged enclave.

Bodies recovered, Israeli strikes continue

On Saturday, an Israeli air strike targeted two people in northern Gaza, according to a statement from the military, which alleged that they “posed an immediate threat” to Israeli troops after crossing the so-called yellow line, which separates areas under Israeli army control from those where Palestinians are permitted to move.

No details were yet available on whether the two people were killed or injured.

Gaza’s Civil Defence on Saturday also said it recovered the bodies of 94 Palestinians from the rubble in the enclave.

The bodies were retrieved in central Gaza City and transferred to the forensic department at Al-Shifa Medical Complex to arrange their burial in the Martyrs’ Cemetery in the central city of Deir el-Balah, according to a statement from the Civil Defence.

Thousands of Palestinians are believed to still be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza.

The Israeli army has killed more than 70,700 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and injured more than 171,000 others since it began its genocidal war on the enclave in October 2023.

The United States Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will hold talks in Miami, Florida, with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye as efforts continue to advance the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, even as Israel repeatedly violates the truce on the ground.

A White House official told Al Jazeera Arabic on Friday that Witkoff is set to meet representatives from the three countries to discuss the future of the agreement aimed at halting Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Axios separately reported that the meeting, scheduled for later on Friday, will include Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

At the same time, Israel’s public broadcaster, quoting an Israeli official, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding a restricted security consultation to examine the second phase of the ceasefire and potential scenarios.

That official warned that Israel could launch a new military campaign to disarm Hamas if US President Donald Trump were to disengage from the Gaza process, while acknowledging that such a move was unlikely because Trump wants to preserve calm in the enclave.

Despite Washington’s insistence that the ceasefire remains intact, Israeli attacks have continued almost uninterrupted, as it continues to renege on the terms of the first phase, as it blocks the free flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

According to an Al Jazeera analysis, Israeli forces carried out attacks on Gaza on 58 of the past 69 days of the truce, leaving only 11 days without reported deaths, injuries or violence.

In Washington, Trump said on Thursday that Netanyahu is likely to visit him in Florida during the Christmas holidays, as the US president presses for the launch of the agreement’s second phase.

“Yes, he will probably visit me in Florida. He wants to meet me. We haven’t formally arranged it yet, but he wants to meet me,” Trump told reporters.

Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating and guaranteeing the truce after a devastating two-year genocide in Gaza, have urged a transition to the second phase of the agreement. The plan includes a full Israeli military withdrawal and the deployment of an international stabilisation force (ISF).

Fragile truce, entrenched occupation

Qatar’s prime minister warned on Wednesday that daily Israeli breaches of the Gaza ceasefire are threatening the entire agreement, as he called for urgent progress towards the next phase of the deal to end Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Sheikh Mohammed made the appeal following talks with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, where he stressed that “delays and ceasefire violations endanger the entire process and place mediators in a difficult position”.

The ceasefire remains deeply unstable, and Palestinians and rights groups say it is a ceasefire only in name, amid Israeli violations and a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Since the truce took effect on October 10, 2025, Israel has repeatedly breached the agreement, killing hundreds of Palestinians.

Gaza’s Government Media Office says Israel committed at least 738 violations between October 10 and December 12, including air strikes, artillery fire and direct shootings.

Israeli forces shot at civilians 205 times, carried out 37 incursions beyond the so-called “yellow line”, bombed or shelled Gaza 358 times, demolished property on 138 occasions and detained 43 Palestinians, the office said.

Israel has also continued to block critical humanitarian aid while systematically destroying homes and infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, Israel Hayom quoted an Israeli security official as saying the so-called “yellow line” now marks Israel’s new border inside Gaza, adding that Israeli forces will not withdraw unless Hamas is disarmed. The official said the army is preparing to remain there indefinitely.

The newspaper also reported that Israeli military leaders are proposing continued control over half of Gaza, underscoring Israel’s apparent intent to entrench its occupation rather than implement a genuine ceasefire.

Compounding the misery in Gaza, a huge storm that recently hit the Strip has killed at least 13 people as torrential rains and fierce winds flooded tents and caused damaged buildings to collapse.

Israel’s two-year war has decimated more than 80 percent of the structures across Gaza, forcing hundreds of thousands of families to take refuge in flimsy tents or overcrowded makeshift shelters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced ‘the largest gas deal in Israel’s history’, worth around $35 billion, with Egypt. Cairo has been a vocal critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but experts say the country is facing an energy crisis.

Fifteen years ago, a Tunisian fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, despairing at official corruption and police violence, walked to the centre of his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire, and changed the region forever.

Much of the hope triggered by that act lies in ruins. The revolutions that followed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria have cost the lives of tens and thousands before, in some cases, giving way to chaos or the return of authoritarianism.

Only Tunisia appeared to fulfil the promise of the “Arab Spring”, with voices from around the world championing its democratic success, ignoring economic and political failings through much of its post-revolutionary history that stirred discontent.

Today, many of Tunisia’s post-revolutionary gains have been cast aside in the wake of President Kais Saied’s dramatic power grab in July 2021. Labelled a coup by his opponents, it ushered in a new hardline rule in Tunisia.

Burying the hopes of the revolution

Over the following years, as well as temporarily shuttering parliament – only reopening it in March 2023 – Saied has rewritten the constitution and overseen a relentless crackdown on critics and opponents.

“They essentially came for everyone; judges, civil society members, people from all political backgrounds, especially the ones that were talking about unifying an opposition against the coup regime,” Kaouther Ferjani, whose father, 71-year-old Ennahdha leader Said Ferjani, was arrested in February 2023.

In September, Saied said his measures were a continuation of the revolution triggered by Bouzazzi’s self-immolation. Painting himself a man of the people, he railed against nameless “lobbyists and their supporters” who thwart the people’s ambitions.

However, while many Tunisians have been cowed into silence by Saied’s crackdown, they have also refused to take part in elections, now little more than a procession for the president.

In 2014, during the country’s first post-revolution presidential election, about 61 percent of the country’s voters turned out to vote.

By last year’s election, turnout had halved.

“Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule has definitively buried the hopes and aspirations of the 2011 revolution by systematically crushing fundamental rights and freedoms and putting democratic institutions under his thumb,” Bassam Khawaja, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera English.

In the wake of the revolution, many across Tunisia became activists, seeking to involve themselves in forging what felt like a new national identity.

The number of civil society organisations exploded, with thousands forming to lobby against corruption or promote human rights, transitional justice, press freedom and women’s rights.

At the same time, political shows competed for space, debating the direction the country’s new identity would take.

“It was an amazing time,” a political analyst who witnessed the revolution and remains in Tunisia said, asking to remain anonymous. “Anybody with anything to say was saying it.

“Almost overnight, we had hundreds of political parties and thousands of civil society organisations. Many of the political parties shifted or merged… but Tunisia retained an active civil society, as well as retaining freedom of speech all the way up to 2022.”

Threatened by Saied’s Decree 54 of 2022, which criminalised any electronic communication deemed by the government as false, criticism of the ruling elite within the media and even on social networks has largely been muzzled.

“Freedom of speech was one of the few lasting benefits of the revolution,” the analyst continued.

“The economy failed to pick up, services didn’t really improve, but we had debate and freedom of speech. Now, with Decree 54, as well as commentators just being arrested for whatever reason, it’s gone.”

In 2025, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch slammed Tunisia’s crackdown on activists and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).

In a statement before the prosecution of six NGO workers and human rights defenders working for the Tunisian Council for Refugees in late November, Amnesty pointed to the 14 Tunisian and international NGOs that had their activities suspended by court order over the previous four months.

Included were the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights, the media platform Nawaat and the Tunis branch of the World Organisation against Torture.

‘Plotting against state security’

Dozens of political figures from post-revolution governments have also been arrested, with little concern for party affiliation or ideology.

In April 2023, 84-year-old Rached Ghannouchi, leader of what had been Tunisia’s main political bloc, the Ennahdha Party, was arrested on charges of “plotting against state security”.

According to his daughter, Yusra, after a series of subsequent convictions, Ghannouchi currently faces a further 42 years in jail.

Later the same year, Ghannouchi’s principal critic, Abir Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party, was jailed on a variety of charges.

Critics dismiss the charges, saying the criteria for arrest have been the person’s potential to rally opinion against Saied.

“This is not just the case for my father,” Yusra continued, referring to others, such as the leading post-coup opposition figure Jawhar Ben Mubarak.

“Other politicians, judges, journalists, and ordinary citizens … have been sentenced to very heavy sentences, without any evidence, without any respect for legal procedures, simply because Tunisia has now sadly been taken back to the very same dictatorship against which Tunisians had risen in 2010.”

Ghannouchi and Moussi, along with dozens of former elected lawmakers, remain in jail. The political parties that once vied for power in the country’s parliament are largely absent.

In their place, since Saied’s revised 2022 constitution weakened parliament, is a body that is no longer a threat to the president.

“The old parliament was incredibly fractious, and did itself few favours,” said Hatem Nafti, essayist and author of Our Friend Kais Saied, a book criticising Tunisia’s new regime. He was referring to the ammunition provided to its detractors by a chaotic and occasionally violent parliament.

“However, it was democratically elected and blocked legislation that its members felt would harm Tunisia.

“In the new parliament, members feel the need to talk tough and even be rude to ministers,” Nafti continued. “But it’s really just a performance… Nearly all the members are there because they agree with Kais Saied.”

Hopes that the justice system might act as a check on Saied have faltered. The president has continued to remodel the judiciary to a design of his own making, including by sacking 57 judges for not delivering verdicts he wanted in 2022.

By the 2024 elections, that effort appeared complete, with the judicial opposition to his rule that remained, in the shape of the administrative court, rendered subservient to his personally appointed electoral authority, and the most serious rivals for the presidency jailed.

“The judiciary is now almost entirely under the government’s control,“ Nafti continued. “Even under [deposed President Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali you had the CSM [Supreme Judicial Council], which oversaw judges’ appointments, promotions, and disciplinary matters.

“Now that only exists on paper, with the minister of justice able to determine precisely what judges go where and what judgements they’ll deliver.”

Citing what he said is the “shameful silence of the international community that once supported the country’s democratic transition”, Khawaja said: ”Saied has returned Tunisia to authoritarian rule.”

On December 3, Israel announced that the Rafah border crossing with Egypt would reopen “in the coming days”, allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza for the first time in months. The statement was, of course, framed as a humanitarian gesture that would allow those in urgent need to travel for medical care, education or family reunification to leave.

However, Israel’s announcement was met almost immediately with Egypt’s denial, followed by a firm rejection from several Arab and Muslim states.

To the rest of the world, this response may seem cruel. It may seem like Arab states want to forcibly keep in Gaza Palestinians desperate to evacuate to safety. This fits right into the Israeli narrative that neighbouring Arab countries are responsible for Palestinian suffering because they would not “let them in”.

This is a falsehood that has unfortunately made its way into Western media, even though it is easily disproved.

Let us be clear: No, Arab states are not keeping us against our will in Gaza, and neither is Hamas.

They want to make sure that when and if some of us evacuate temporarily, we are able to come back. We want the same – a guarantee of return. Yet, Israel refuses to grant it; it made clear in its December 3 announcement that the Rafah crossing would be open only one way – for Palestinians to leave.

So this was clearly a move meant to jump-start forced displacement of the Palestinian population from their homeland.

For Palestinians, this is not a new reality but part of a long and deliberate pattern. Since its inception, the Israeli state has focused on the dispossession, erasure, and forced displacement of the Palestinians. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and were not allowed to return. My 88-year-old grandfather was among them. He still keeps the Tabu (land registry document) for the dunams of land he owns in his village of Barqa, 37km (23 miles) north of Gaza, where we are still not allowed to return.

In 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza, it forbade Palestinians who were studying or working abroad from returning to their homes. In the occupied West Bank, where colonisation has not stopped for the past 58 years, Palestinians are regularly expelled from their homes and lands.

In the past two years alone, Israel has seized approximately 55,000 dunams of Palestinian land, displacing more than 2,800 Palestinians. In Jerusalem, Palestinians whose families had lived in the holy city for centuries risk losing their residency there if they cannot prove it is their “centre of life”. In the past 25 years, more than 10,000 Palestinian residencies have been revoked.

Since October 2023, Israel has repeatedly attempted to engineer forced mass displacement in Gaza – dividing the Strip into isolated zones separated by military corridors and “safe” axes and launching successive operations to push residents of the north towards the south. Each wave of mass bombing carried the same underlying objective: to uproot the people of Gaza from their homes and push them towards the border with Egypt. The most recent push occurred just before the latest ceasefire took effect.

According to Diaa Rashwan, chairman of the Egyptian State Information Service, Cairo rejected Israel’s proposal because it was an attempt to shun its commitments outlined in the second phase of the ceasefire. That phase requires Israel to withdraw from Gaza, support the reconstruction process, allow the Strip to be administered by a Palestinian committee, and facilitate the deployment of a security force to stabilise the situation. By announcing Rafah’s reopening, Israel sought to bypass these obligations and redirect the political conversation towards depopulation rather than reconstruction and recovery.

That Israel wants to create the conditions to make our expulsion inevitable is clear from other policies as well. It continues to bombard the Strip, killing hundreds of civilians and terrorising hundreds of thousands.

It continues to prevent adequate amounts of food and medicines from getting in. It is allowing no reconstruction materials or temporary housing. It is doing everything to maximise the suffering of the Palestinian people.

This reality is made even more brutal by the harsh winter. Cold winds tear through overcrowded camps filled with exhausted people who have endured every form of trauma imaginable. Yet despite hunger, exhaustion, and despair, we continue to cling to our land and reject any Israeli efforts to displace and erase us.

We also reject any form of external guardianship or control over our fate. We demand full Palestinian sovereignty over our land, our resources, and our crossings. Our position is clear: the Rafah crossing must be opened in both directions; not as a tool of displacement, but as a right to free movement.

Rafah must be accessible for those who wish to return, and for those who need to leave temporarily: students seeking to continue their education abroad, patients in urgent need of medical treatment unavailable in Gaza, and families who have been separated and long to be reunited. Thousands of critically ill Palestinians have been denied life-saving care due to the siege, while hundreds of students holding offers and scholarships from prestigious universities around the world have been unable to travel to pursue their education.

Rafah should also be open to those who simply need rest after years of trauma – to step outside Gaza briefly and return with dignity. Mobility is not a privilege; it is a basic human right.

What we demand is simple: the right to determine our future, without coercion, without bargaining over our existence, and without being pushed into forced displacement disguised as a humanitarian project.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.