Sisi: Egypt will work with Trump but displacement of Palestinians is ‘injustice we cannot participate in’

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi voiced a forceful position on Wednesday against the displacement of Palestinians into Egypt, staking out his position on an issue thrust into the spotlight by US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Egypt “take” Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“I say it very clearly, the displacement of the Palestinian people is an injustice that we cannot participate in,” the Egyptian president said in a public address televised live from Cairo.

Sisi’s comment came after Trump raised the specter of a renewed mass-displacement of Palestinians from the strip over recent days, an aim embraced by politicians and military figures in Israel at the outset of their aggression on Gaza in 2023 and resoundingly rejected by Egypt.

Aboard the presidential charter jet, the newly inaugurated US president told a press huddle on Saturday that the majority of Gaza was in ruins, and that he would like to “just clean out that whole thing,” rehousing over a million Palestinians indefinitely to Jordan and Egypt.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry clarified Cairo’s stance against displacing Palestinians the following day, without referring to Trump’s statement directly.

Yet an indirect exchange between the presidents ensued in the media, with reports claiming Trump told journalists on Monday that he had spoken with Sisi again about the issue, while a high-ranking government source denied to Egyptian media on Tuesday that such a call had taken place. 

Without commenting on the rumors of a call between the presidents, Sisi noted on Wednesday that he spoke in response to “what was said about the issue of the displacement of Palestinians,” affirming his commitment to working with the United States for a resolution to conflict in the region at the same time as insisting on Egypt’s stance on the Palestinian cause.

“The constants of the historical Egyptian position regarding the Palestinian issue can never be deviated from or compromised,” said Sisi, elaborating that Egypt is committed to a two-state solution that would see the establishment of a Palestinian state on Palestinian land as per the 1967 borders. 

“We are determined to work with President Trump,” Sisi continued, stating that the US president wants to achieve peace based on the two-state solution. 

“We see President Trump as capable of achieving this long-awaited goal to achieve a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East,” he added.

Yet, speaking from the presidential palace during a conference convened for an official visit from the Kenyan president, Sisi also noted the potential ramifications of foreign powers insisting on a demand for Palestinian displacement. 

“Whether I am in my place or have left it,” the Egyptian president said, “it is very, very important that those who listen to us in our region know there is a nation of people that has a position on this matter.”

Sisi continued: “This is not my opinion and I must keep public opinion in mind, not that of Arabs or Egyptians, but the opinion of a general public who sees what has befallen the Palestinian people over the past 70 years as a historical injustice.”

“I do not think [displacement] can happen again,” he said. “If I ask the Egyptian people to do this, they will all take to the streets and tell me no. Do not participate in injustice.”

While Egyptians nationwide have expressed opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza and solidarity with Palestinians resisting occupation, Egyptian authorities conducted scores of arrests when people took to public spaces to demonstrate in 2023.

Institutions from professional syndicates to political parties in Egypt have expressed rejection of Palestinian displacement over recent days in the wake of Trump’s comments.

Among them were the Civil Democratic Movement, a coalition of seven broadly liberal parties, which issued a statement on Tuesday saying it would organize a peaceful protest in front of the US embassy in rejection of Trump’s plan and calling for a national conference “for all opponents of Trump’s plan to express Egyptian solidarity across political lines.”

Others who have raised cries against displacement include the Nation’s Future Party, who currently hold a parliamentary majority, and the Journalists Syndicate.

The rejections come amid ongoing negotiations for the truce mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the US toward a permanent ceasefire.

The truce and prisoner exchange began on January 19, bringing a comparative calm to the strip following months of continuous Israeli bombing that killed over 47,000 Palestinians.

The agreement is set to lead to a lasting ceasefire in the Gaza Strip over three stages, with Israeli withdrawal from the strip and its governance in the future still wide open to competing political visions.

Israeli forces still stationed in the strip have opened fire at Palestinians in various areas since the agreement came to effect, although hundreds of thousands of displaced residents were able to return to northern Gaza on Monday — fulfilling one of Hamas’s major demands in talks over the 15 months of the war.

Under the Biden administration, the US previously said it opposed the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank out of their land, in response to concerns by Arab countries at the time.

Palestinians were previously able to gain permission to leave the Gaza Strip for travel via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. 

Around 4,000 Palestinians were evacuated from the strip via the Rafah crossing during the first five months of the war, until Israel’s invasion and occupation of the site in May sealed the crossing against the passage of goods and people.