page_title: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
section_title: Israel and Palestine
hierarchical_section_title: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi / Presidency (2014–present) / Foreign policy / Israel and Palestine
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sit together at the Congress Center in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on March 13, 2015, before a quadrilateral meeting and their attendance at an Egyptian development conference. [State Department Photo/Public Domain]
context_page_description: Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi is an Egyptian politician who is the sixth and current President of Egypt, former Director of Military Intelligence, former Minister of Defence, and former General. Starting 10 February 2019, Sisi also began serving a one-year term as Chairperson of the African Union, which concluded in 2020.
  Sisi was born in Cairo and after joining the Egyptian Army, held a post in Saudi Arabia before enrolling in the Egyptian Army's Command and Staff College. In 1992, Sisi trained at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Watchfield, Oxfordshire, in the United Kingdom, and then in 2006 trained at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sisi served as a mechanized infantry commander and then as director of military intelligence. After the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and election of Mohamed Morsi to the Egyptian presidency, Sisi was appointed Minister of Defence by Morsi on 12 August 2012, replacing the Mubarak-era Hussein Tantawi.
context_section_description: Relations with Israel have improved significantly following Mohamed Morsi's removal, with Sisi saying he talks to Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, "a lot." Sisi has been described by The Economist as "the most pro-Israeli Egyptian leader ever." With continuous support for Palestine, the Sisi administration supports the two-state solution establishing a Palestinian state on lands that were occupied in 1967  with Eastern Jerusalem as its capital for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict achieving the Palestinians needs and granting Israel the security it wants. The first months of Sisi's presidency witnessed the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. Egypt also criticised the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip as "oppressive policies of mass punishment rejecting 'the irresponsible Israeli escalation' in the occupied Palestinian territory, which comes in the form of 'excessive' and unnecessary use of military force leading to the death of innocent civilians." It also demanded Israel adopt self-restraint and to keep in mind that being an "occupation force", it has a legal and moral duty to protect civilian lives.
  
  After Egypt proposed an initiative for a ceasefire later accepted by Israel and rejected by Hamas, the Sisi administration urged the world to intervene and stop the crisis when it stated that its ceasefire efforts have been met with "obstinacy and stubbornness". Egypt also hosted several meetings with both Israeli and Palestinian officials in Cairo to mediate a ceasefire. President Sisi also ordered the Egyptian Armed Forces to transport 500 tons of aid, consisting of food and medical supplies, to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A statement was also released by the military saying that Egypt is pursuing its efforts to "stop the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip" under the president's supervision. The conflict ended with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on 26 August 2014.
   Egypt also hosted the international donor conference in Cairo aiming to raise 4 billion (3.2 billion euros) to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. Sisi described the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict as a great chance to end the 66-year-old conflict calling on Israel to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians and saying "I call on the Israeli people and the government: now is the time to end the conflict ... so that prosperity prevails, so that we all can have peace and security". Sisi mainly blames the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for the extremism in the Middle East describing it as a "fertile environment for the growth and spread of extremism, violence and terrorism". Sisi also promised that Egypt would guarantee Palestine would not violate the peace treaty when reached expressing Egypt's willingness to deploy Egyptian observer forces in the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
  Sisi also stipulated that the Palestinian Authority would take power in the Gaza Strip in future peace plans and conditioned an easing of transit restrictions at the Rafah checkpoint on the presence of a force from the Palestinian Authority's Presidential Guard being stationed on the Gaza side of the crossing as the Sisi administration considers Hamas an enemy, blaming them for the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in 2012 and over the alleged involvement in the prisons' storming in the wake of Egyptian Revolution of 2011.
caption: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sit together at the Congress Center in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on 13 March 2015
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D4S", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2015:03:13 08:14:59", "Image Artist": "Glen Johnson", "Image ExifOffset": "242", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "932", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15967", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:03:13 08:03:01", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:03:13 08:03:01", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "790241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, compulsory flash mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "31", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "84", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "31", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2015335", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[28, 70, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED"}