With Stabilisation Force HQ in Sinai, Egypt becomes Gaza's gatekeeper

Egypt has this week launched a decisive new chapter in its role in Gaza, restoring a level of regional influence it has not held in years as preparations advance for estabishing the headquarters of the Gaza Stabilisation Force (GSF) in the northern Sinai town of Arish only 40 kilometres from the Gaza Strip.

Once a quiet outpost in Sinai, Arish is now the focus of efforts by Cairo and Washington to host an international force before it is deployed in the devastated Palestinian territory, tasked with overseeing Gaza through its "post-ceasefire" period. 

Troops from contributing nations, many yet to be determined, will arrive in Arish for induction before they are vetted, trained, and equiped. According to insiders, they will only receive non-lethal gear and surveillance tech, and then dispatched across the frontier to Gaza to help enforce the fragile ceasefire there that cotinues to be violated by Israel. 

For many in Egypt, despite the uncertainty, this is already a win for the country's geopolitical interests.

"Egypt is no longer a bystander in the Palestinian file, having become an indispensable gatekeeper," political analyst Mohamed Rabie al-Dehi told The New Arab.

"Any serious solution—security, political, or economic—must now pass through Cairo's hands," he added.

Al-Dehi pointed to numerous advantages that leverage Egypt's geopolitical importance for the Gaza file.

These advantages, he said, include Egypt's 12-kilometre shared border with Gaza; its sovereign control over the Rafah crossing; the sprawling logistics hub at Arish Port and airport, just 40 kilometres away, and its hard-earned credibility with every major player in the Gaza crisis, from Washington and Doha to Ramallah and, when needed, Tel Aviv.

The presence of the GSF command headquarters in Sinai will provide Cairo a way to influence the post-war deliberations, from aid distribution to reconstruction, while allowing the Egyptian military to clamp down on any security threats it perceives emerging in the Sinai, argue analysts.

The new outpost is supposed to function in tandem with Israel's Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat, forming a bilateral axis of control along the border.

At the same time, Egyptian and Jordanian officers will train the vanguard of a 10,000-strong Palestinian police contingent that will be sent to Gaza. Once deployed under the GSF umbrella, these recruits, who are drawn from different Gaza communities, will in theory take control of Gaza's streets from Hamas and ensure some security and order after two years of Israeli genocide. 

The peninsula, vast as Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza combined, yet sparsely populated by just over half a million people, has long been a challenge for Egyptian authorities.

The Hamas-led assaults on Israeli military bases and settlements within and along the Gaza envelope on October 7, 2023, and Israel's genocidal war, reignited fears in Cairo, particularly if Israel forcibly depopulated the coastal enclave of over two million residents and pushed them en masse into Sinai. 

Whispers of such Israeli plans to push out the Palestinian people at the time prompted Cairo to mobilise 40,000 troops in a thinly veiled show of force. However, the peace treaty and close coordination between Israel and Egypt have largely withstood the crisis.

"Egypt has been meticulous," Gen. Mukhtar al-Ghabari, a former senior Egyptian army commander, told TNA. "By insisting on a binding UN Security Council resolution to legitimise the force and its command structure, Cairo has wrapped the entire project in unbreakable legal armour."

In al-Ghabari's view, Egypt's ambition is to deliver Gaza, intact and pacified, into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, thereby closing the chapter on Hamas's armed control of the Strip, which the authorities are hostile towards. 

A stable Gaza, al-Ghabari argued, is the most effective firewall Egypt can erect against any perceived threats it sees emerging in northern Sinai.

Existential red lines

Troop pledges to the GSF remain fluid, with meetings scheduled in the coming days to quantify specific commitments from participating states. Israel has also caused headaches with its veto of Turkish participation, citing Ankara's Hamas sympathies.

Moreover, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back at Trump's phased withdrawal, demanding Hamas's utter dissolution first and before anything else.

But the disarmament clause in US President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza ceasefire plan as the "most difficult", especially as Israel continues to violate the ceasefire and kill civilians daily.

Hamas, for its part, has refused to disarm and is still entrenched in much of Gaza, despite two years of Israel's genocidal war. The group has lambasted Resolution 2803, which legalised the GSF on 17 November, as a ploy to hide the occupation under the guise of "international guardianship". 

The weapons of resistance, Hamas stressed in a statement on 18 November, are linked to the fate of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond.

Similarly, Palestinian factions, in a unified rebuke, insisted that the GSF must confine itself to civilian protection and aid facilitation, without policing powers or disarmament enforcement, lest it should devolve into an "occupier's proxy".

Several seasoned Palestinian analysts highlighted that Hamas views complete disarmament not as a negotiable concession but as an existential red line, especially in light of Israel's genocide. 

"I've said it from day one: the real test is not the ceasefire itself, but everything that comes after it," veteran Palestinian political analyst Osama Shaath told TNA.

If the status quo calcifies with no political solution and accountability, he continued, reconstruction will remain a mirage, despair will deepen, and tens of thousands of Gazans—exhausted, homeless, and hopeless—will choose exile over another decade of Israeli siege and violence.