As soon as the door of the Egyptian state plane opens on which he flew from Cairo to North Sinai an hour earlier, outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs David van Weel (VVD) is welcomed by the governor of the area. By him and a handful of security guards with automatic weapons.
Gifts are exchanged at the military airport in Al-Arish, the capital of North Sinai. And drank a lot of tea, after which the minister races at high speed and accompanied by a police convoy to the Egyptian border with Gaza.
The red carpet has been rolled out for him there. Van Weel received the warmest welcome in Egypt on Tuesday.
The border
According to him, the fact that the minister will be standing at the Gaza-Egyptian border on October 7 – exactly two years after Hamas’s attacks on Israel – was not planned that way. He finds it impressive.
The border with Gaza has been occupied by Israel since May 2024 and Rafah – which borders Egypt in the south of the Gaza Strip – can be seen at some point along the way to that border. The houses on the outskirts of that city have been destroyed and razed to the ground. Even to the naked eye, the devastation is unmistakably evident.
Strategic partner
Van Weel is the third Dutch minister to visit Egypt in the past twelve months. Previously, Marjolein Faber (Asylum and Migration, PVV) and his predecessor Caspar Veldkamp (NSC) visited the Arab country.
Egypt is not only an important geopolitical player at world level, the country is also an important bilateral partner for the Netherlands.
In the capital Cairo, Van Weel spoke in a five-star hotel on Tuesday morning, in the first week of the election recess, with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty about Dutch investments in Egypt, water management, agriculture and migration.
The Netherlands sees Egypt as an essential partner, especially on the latter theme. Because the Netherlands – just like Europe – wants to significantly limit the influx of migrants. This requires strategic partnerships with relevant migration countries. Egypt is such a migration country.
Van Weel with Egyptian authorities and aid workers.
Photo EPA/STRINGER
There is no direct migration flow between Egypt and the Netherlands. According to data from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, many Egyptians are arriving in Italy and Greece by boat this year. Due to the poor economic situation in Egypt, many are leaving the country.
In addition, Egypt is a transit country and hosts a large number of refugees and asylum seekers. To illustrate: since the escalation of the civil war in Sudan in 2023, at least one and a half million Sudanese refugees have crossed the Egyptian border.
Van Weel was also in his role as outgoing Minister of Asylum and Migration in Egypt. Higher on the agenda on Tuesday was the situation in Gaza, ahead of his other agenda as foreign minister.
Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations
This week, Egypt is mainly the epicenter of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel on a possible ceasefire.
Since Monday evening, US President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan, which must include a ceasefire and the permanent dismantling of Hamas, has been on the table in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
And if a truce reaches that point, the Netherlands will be happy to play a role in the reconstruction of the Palestinian coastal enclave.
On Tuesday morning, Van Weel and Abdelatty announced in a press conference in Cairo that the Netherlands, at the invitation of Egypt, will co-organize a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza. Germany, France and Japan are also said to have been invited. It is currently unclear when that conference will take place.
According to Van Weel, Egypt has identified countries that “have done a lot for the Palestinians.” And that includes the Netherlands, he says NRC.
Red Line
At least a quarter of a million people in the Netherlands will most likely disagree with that statement. On Sunday, 250,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Amsterdam in protest against the cabinet’s position on Israel. They demand tougher measures and believe that The Hague is not taking sufficient action to stop the genocide in Gaza.
Van Weel said on Tuesday from Egypt that he understands the frustration of these people about the situation in Gaza, and that everyone wants an “end to the suffering”.
He then refers to the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh, which he says is “the best chance we have had so far”, after which he emphasizes Dutch measures such as the entry ban of two far-right Israeli ministers and the trade ban on products from illegal settlements. Although the latter has yet to be legally established.
The minister has tried to find the balance between “pressure and dialogue” in his own way, he says. He considers it important to maintain a relationship with Israel. “I can still pick up the phone,” he says. Other European countries do not, “because they no longer have that relationship”.
When asked when a red line has been reached for him, Van Weel answers that “red lines” are “of no use” for him as Foreign Minister. According to him, red lines imply that you have an “impact” to change the situation, while according to him his impact lies on practicing diplomacy. “I am Minister of Foreign Affairs and I have to continuously look: where can I make a difference.”
Medical evacuations
The government is trying to make that difference, among other things, with 25 million euros that it recently allocated to help patients from Gaza in the region. And last week the minister also decided to take care of “some” sick children from Gaza in the Netherlands, after the cabinet had previously refused to do so several times.
Aid organizations and experts have long pointed to medical shortages in countries such as Egypt, but after his own research, Van Weel also found that there is insufficient highly specialized care in neighboring countries of Gaza and the Netherlands will therefore step in. Nearly 16,000 people in Gaza are awaiting medical evacuations, according to the World Health Organization.
But almost a week later, Van Weel in Egypt still has no answer to the question of how many children will be cared for in the Netherlands. There should be more clarity about this within a few weeks. Part of the trip to Egypt includes seeing the much-discussed healthcare in the region with your own eyes.
Also read
There is insufficient medical care in Egypt for Palestinians from Gaza: ‘I don’t want my legs to be amputated’
Hopital
The media circus caused by Van Weel’s visit to North Sinai causes a lot of commotion in and around a hospital in Al-Arish. Roads are closed until the convoy of exactly fourteen vehicles races past.
The governor, a highest-ranking officer in the Egyptian army, has a lot of security, which resulted in a group of dozens moving through the hospital on Tuesday evening: civil servants, diplomats, security guards, doctors and journalists attract a lot of attention.
Van Weel speaks with evacuated Gazans in the hospital, without the press present. Curious heads poke out of other patient rooms. From people who also like to tell their story. One of those looks belongs to 43-year-old Suzan from Gaza. She has breast cancer, is missing her right breast and has been treated in hospital since the beginning of this year.
The woman needs medication that she cannot afford herself. But in order to be prescribed and therefore reimbursed, test results are required from tests that are not carried out in this hospital.
But she prefers to talk about her home country. About Rafah, where her husband stayed behind. “The people in Gaza are suffering,” she says. Then the minister moves, and with him the whole traveling spectacle. “Everyone needs to know,” Suzan shouts.
‘Cautious optimism’
As of Tuesday evening, there has not yet been a sealed agreement between Hamas and Israel. According to Reuters, the Prime Minister of Qatar will travel to Egypt on Wednesday to join the negotiations.
In Egypt, Van Weel spoke of “cautious optimism” with regard to the negotiations. And at the Gaza border, he emphasized that Trump’s plan is “the best hope” for everything “that these people also want to achieve,” referring to the 250,000 demonstrators at Sunday’s Red Line protest.
At the border with Gaza, close to the place where some 67,000 Palestinians were killed in the past two years, dull booms were heard every now and then on Tuesday. A bombing? Anti-aircraft guns? “It is certainly not calm yet,” Minister Van Weel also notes. Despite Trump’s call for Israel to stop attacks, the Israeli army does not appear to be taking a break from fighting in Gaza.
And while dozens of Egyptian photographers are scrambling at the entrance to the border to take a photo of the Dutch minister with the Egyptian governor, no one crows about the street cats that cross the border with Gaza unnoticed.
Also read
Hamas’s yes to Trump’s plan comes with many conditions
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