ASSESSMENTS

Gaza Is Bringing Egypt and Qatar Closer, but It Can't Keep Them Together

Sep 25, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

A Palestinian man walks past a shuttered health center provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) during a strike of all UNRWA institutions in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sept. 24. Washington has provided more than $350 million per year for the agency, which helps Palestinian refugees. However, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew funding earlier this year.

(SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

A comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains extremely far off. 
Concerned powers such as Israel, the United States, Egypt and the Gulf states are all carrying out policies intended to prevent a major war in Gaza. 
Qatar and Egypt, two ideological foes, are seeking the same objective of a stable Gaza, but neither of them controls enough of the situation to prevent a full-on return to war. 
The two states will only tolerate one another so long as an Israeli-Palestinian truce holds — and if it falls apart, each will try to pin blame on the other.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the oldest in the modern Middle East. For decades, from its start in 1948 to the early 21st century, powers great and small sought to find a permanent solution. But in the wake of the Arab Spring and Iran's growing nuclear capabilities, the best that most countries are hoping for is ensuring truces and cease-fires. This is especially true in the volatile Gaza Strip, which has been de facto ruled by Palestinian group Hamas since 2007. Hamas is inching toward establishing a long-term truce with Israel, but Gaza is still home to regular clashes between the Israeli Defense Forces and Gazan militants....

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