The nearest point to a consensus on the past week of brutality in Israel and Gaza is that these are the opening shots of a longer chapter of conflict that risks spilling into a regional conflagration that could overturn governments.

Washington’s despatch of one of its biggest aircraft carriers and aerial strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean was more than a symbolic show of support for its Israeli ally. 

In that sense, those drawing parallels between Hamas launching a multi-pronged attack against southern Israel on 7 October and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001 are making a critical point about how retaliatory responses can unleash unintended but devastating consequences.  

Warning

More than 700,000, mostly civilians, were killed in the West’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many of the foot soldiers in those wars came from North Africa. 

In Israel-Palestine the contours are clear. Egypt’s government, no ally of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas, said it had repeatedly warned Israel that the Gaza strip would ‘explode’ because of the deteriorating political and humanitarian conditions there. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Egypt’s claim as “absolutely false”. 

Facing an election in December and an unravelling national economy, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi knows how strongly Egypt’s people support the Palestinian struggle for a viable state. Some Cairenes took to the streets outside the Al Azhar mosque in solidarity with the Palestinians after Friday prayers on 13 October. It was a rare public protest as Al-Sisi’s political standing had been weakening. 

Along with economic mismanagement and elite corruption, regional governments’ failure to back the Palestinian cause was one of the contributory factors fuelling the Arab Spring protests in 2011 that toppled Al-Sisi’s military predecessor, Hosni Mubarak. 

Locked in history

Al-Sisi and Egypt’s government are locked into Palestinian politics by geography and history. The Yom Kippur war of 6 October 1973, some 50 years before Hamas launched its attack last week, started with Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal into the Sinai Peninsula and Syria, seizing the Golan Heights in the north.  

It ended in ignominious defeat for the Arab regimes. Six years later, Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and won back control of Sinai. Now in the latest round of fighting in Gaza, Egyptian officials say Israel is trying to drag their country into the fray again.  

As the Israeli government tightened its siege, cutting off water and power, its military spokesman advised Palestinians to leave Gaza through its border with Egypt. This echoed calls by far-right Israeli politicians to resettle Palestinians in Gaza across the border in the arid Sinai Peninsula. 

Traffic through that border, the Rafah crossing to the south of Gaza, has been restricted by the Cairo government to forestall any attempt to drive the Palestinians into Egypt. The road from the Rafah crossing leads directly into the Sinai Peninsula, where Egyptian security forces do battle with multiple Islamist insurgents and affiliates of Al Qaeda and ISIS, all seeking to topple the Cairo government. 

Discord

This deepening crisis prompted Egypt’s Al-Sisi to underline his position on 10 October: “We will not allow the Palestinian cause to be resolved at the expense of other parties.” More explicitly two days later, Al-Sisi told a graduation ceremony at Egypt’s Military Academy that the “Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip must stay steadfast” and “remain on their land” and promised to send in humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing. 

That was a rare and not-so-coded show of discord between Egypt and Israel. Until now, the two countries and their security agencies have cooperated closely on border security. Over the past week, officials in Egypt’s foreign ministry have accused Israel’s air force of bombing roads around the Rafah crossing, ratcheting up tensions. 

Discussing Israel’s unpreparedness for the Hamas attack, a former director of its Shin Bet security service told the BBC that it had lost most of its human intelligence sources in Gaza. 

Egyptian security appears to have been far better informed about developments in the enclave. Egypt also allows Hamas to run a regional office in Cairo, which is heavily monitored. Should this latest war be confined to a fight in Gaza between Hamas and the Israel Defence Force, then Egypt could still be brought in to mediate a ceasefire. 

But such a coda looks unlikely given Israel’s determination to obliterate Hamas. Neither does it look probable that the fighting will be confined to Gaza.

Intensifying conflict

Clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas, have been intensifying this year. Frustrated with what they see as Abbas’s failure to defend their interests, more radical Palestinians are demanding his exit. 

North of Israel’s border in Lebanon, Hizbullah is preparing to join the conflict on the side of Hamas. Heavily backed by Iran and financed by gold and diamond smuggling networks in Africa, Hizbullah has graduated from its Shia militia status into one of the region’s most formidable fighting forces. With precision-guided missiles and long-range anti-ship missiles in its armoury, its soldiers were among the most effective in the Yemen, Syria and Iraq wars. 

Visiting Lebanon on 13 October, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said there would be “every possibility” of a “second front” – by Hizbullah – opening against Israel if it maintains the blockade with Gaza. Some Hizbullah commanders speak confidently of plans to cross the border into Israel. That would emphatically regionalise the conflict, with consequences out of Hizbullah’s and Iran’s control. 

A proxy war with Israel would be a heavy gamble for Iran. It could force Arab regimes in the region to pick sides, prompting more anti-Israeli and anti-western protests, and recruiting more young fighters from the region to its cause. It could also bury Israel’s plans to extend its “Abraham Accords” agreements to more Arab states such as Saudi Arabia. 

But it could also go wrong with Lebanon imploding. The US is promising to weigh in heavily on Israel’s side. President Joe Biden has warned Iran to stay out of the conflict without being explicit about the consequences. There’s no sign that Iran’s allies in Beijing or Moscow want it to stoke such a regional war, but both have given rhetorical support to the Palestinian cause. 

Call for peace

China, which brokered a historic peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March, now trades more with most of the region’s countries than the US. Beijing’s Foreign Minister Wang Ji said he is despatching a special envoy to press for peace negotiations.  

Beyond the consequences of the Hamas-Israel fight in Egypt and Lebanon, there are reverberations across North Africa. Sudan reopened diplomatic relations with Iran on 9 October, having cut ties in 2016.  

This plunges Sudan’s foreign policy into chaos. Its beleaguered junta leader, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, signed an “Abraham Accord” with Israel in 2021 with the aim of getting the US to lift sanctions against Sudan. But consistent diplomacy isn’t a priority now.  

Burhan’s junta is fighting for survival against an onslaught from its erstwhile partners, the Rapid Support Forces, and desperately needs friends on multiple fronts. The Islamist forces fighting alongside Burhan’s army are closely affiliated with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. 

In Morocco, which also signed an “Abraham Accord” with Israel, protestors took to the streets in Rabat this week pledging allegiance to the Palestinian cause. The Kingdom gained diplomatically and militarily from its deal with Israel. It got another country, along with the US under President Donald Trump, to recognise Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. Morocco also got deliveries of hi-tech security and military equipment and drones from Israel. 

That has ramped up tensions with Algeria, a strong supporter of Palestine and the Polisario Front’s right of self-determination in Western Sahara. Together with South Africa, Algeria has stepped up criticism of Israel in the African Union and at the UN. They jointly demanded the suspension of a provision to grant Israel observer status in the African Union. 

Recognising Israel

From the low point after the Yom Kippur war in 1973 when most African countries broke diplomatic ties with Israel, governments started changing tack after its peace deal with Egypt in 1979. Now 44 African states recognise Israel with about two-thirds opening embassies there. 

That’s unlikely to change in the short term. But only a minority of those countries – Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia – expressed solidarity with Israel and condemned the Hamas attack on 7 October. 

Others, led by South Africa and Algeria, are calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities followed by a reopening of negotiations for a viable Palestinian state. Targeted by many in the ruling Africa National Congress, South Africa’s continued diplomatic relations with Israel will come under heavy pressure in the coming weeks.