The occupation authorities informed Egypt of their intention to deploy forces in Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor in the south of the Gaza Strip, explaining that they “will not remain in the area permanently”, according to what the Sky News Arabia website reported from sources: “The matter angered the Egyptian side, which met the request with strong opposition, leading to talks between the two sides, during which the Israeli side pledged never to displace Palestinians towards Egyptian territory”.
The Wall Street Journal revealed that Egypt had been considering recalling its ambassador to the occupation in protest at statements made by the occupation authorities’ legal team at the genocide hearing in The Hague, which accused Egypt of responsibility for besieging the Gaza Strip and refraining from delivering aid. But the United States urged Egypt to refrain from recalling its ambassador, according to what the Israeli channel i24 News reported from unnamed senior diplomatic sources.
Parliament Approves Army Protection of Bridges and Public Facilities
The House of Representatives, in its plenary session, approved the draft law on securing and protecting the state’s public and vital facilities and utilities, which strengthens the role of the armed forces in securing and protecting facilities, including electricity networks, gas pipelines, oil fields, railways, roads, ports and bridges.
Article 2 equated those holding military judiciary posts with their peers in the ordinary judiciary and the Public Prosecution absolutely, after deleting a phrase that had limited this equality to “the scope of application of this law only”.
Article 43 introduced an appeal stage for military felony rulings before they are challenged before the Supreme Military Court of Appeals, so that the levels of litigation before the military judiciary became: a felony court and an appellate felony court, a misdemeanour court and an appellate misdemeanour court, and a supreme court to consider challenges to appeal-stage rulings.
The law grants the armed forces the right to take whatever measures they deem necessary to protect vital facilities and utilities and confront anyone who tries to disrupt their work or obstruct the provision of basic goods. It replaces the law on the participation of the armed forces in the tasks of preserving and protecting vital state facilities, issued in 2013, and the law on securing and protecting public and vital facilities, issued in 2014. The law also grants armed forces officers and non-commissioned officers, as designated by the Minister of Defence, judicial police powers to implement the provisions of the law. All crimes affecting public and vital facilities and utilities are referred to the military judiciary under the new law.
A Parliamentary Request to Investigate the Failure of Health Insurance to Care for Dialysis Patients
MP and health committee member Sara El-Nahhas submitted a briefing request addressed to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar on the role of the General Authority for Health Insurance in providing kidney dialysis services to sick children at university hospitals.
The MP accused those in charge of the health insurance system of negligence in providing the necessary services to child dialysis patients and of a lack of the necessary trained staff to treat them within the system, pointing to the existence of 500,000 kidney patients suffering from the weakness and negligence of the system in the country’s hospitals, forcing them to resort to private treatment to obtain dialysis sessions and weighing them down.
The Pharmaceuticals Division Demands Doubling Drug Prices
The head of the pharmaceuticals division at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Ali Auf, demanded raising drug prices to what he called “the fair level”, which would be achieved by implementing a 100% increase, compared with an actual increase of only 20% on average based on the Egyptian Drug Authority’s pricing, which takes into account the social and economic dimension.
Auf said the costs of importing production inputs have risen, and their prices jumped after the successive increases in the dollar rate since April 2022. According to the division head, Egyptians’ consumption of medicines in 2023 amounted to about EGP 135 billion, an increase of more than 15% compared with 2022, which saw sales of EGP 117.7 billion, and he expected it to rise to EGP 150 billion this year, growth of more than 11%.
Drug prices saw successive increases last year: they rose by 30% in July 2023, and about 70 companies raised the prices of their medicines in all categories, whether for chronic diseases or others, by between 25% and 30% at the same time. Prices of nutritional supplements and vitamins also rose by between 30% and 70%. Up to last August, the prices of about 2,278 medicines had risen by rates starting at 35% and reaching 100% for local medicines, while the increase for medicines fully manufactured abroad reached more than 250%, especially the most important items, according to a report by the Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine.
Telecom Egypt Raises Landline Package Prices
Telecom Egypt announced an increase in the prices of prepaid landline packages, of up to five pounds, starting from 11 January. According to Telecom Egypt’s official website, the prices of all landline packages have changed.
The company also raised the total fees for requesting and installing a landline, including tax and stamp duty, to EGP 203.40 instead of EGP 115.03.
Locust Swarms From Sudan Breach the Egyptian Border
Swarms of yellow desert locusts attacked the border areas of the cities of Halayeb, Shalateen and Abu Ramad in the south of the Red Sea governorate, in huge quantities spanning tens of kilometres, coming from the direction of Sudan and heavily attacking trees and some mountain crops.
According to the newspaper “Al-Dostour”, the competent authorities are working to control and combat the locust swarms through locust control bases spread across the areas adjacent to the border, stationed for protection and control work, and by entering deep into the mountain areas and their gathering places, pointing to the danger of those swarms, which feed at a rate of 35 tonnes of food and crops per square kilometre.
The UNRWA Crisis in Gaza
The United Nations received reports accusing 12 of the agency’s employees of involvement in the 7 October attacks by Hamas in the territories under the control of the Israeli occupation authority, in addition to the use of the agency’s vehicles in the attack. The occupation authority said in its accusation that it had found a document in which “Al-Qassam”, Hamas’s military wing, asked UNRWA in Gaza to grant 12 of its employees leave, because they are members of it and would carry out special training, accusing UNRWA of being Hamas’s civilian arm.
In response to the accusations, on 26 January, the agency’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, announced the termination of the contracts of a number of employees and that the Office of Internal Oversight Services (the UN’s internal oversight body) had begun looking into all these allegations as part of the investigation the UNRWA Commissioner-General asked it to conduct.
Following the accusations, the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, Britain, Finland and the Netherlands decided to suspend funding to the agency, while Switzerland has not yet decided its position, which has worsened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The occupation authority welcomed the halt in funding to the agency and announced that it is working to ensure that this UN agency is not part of the day after the war in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry reacted angrily, describing what is happening as “a premeditated scheme” and condemning countries’ suspension of their aid before the investigation into the case is over. Hamas defended UNRWA, saying the occupation is waging an incitement campaign against the UN agency, which helps Palestinians in the genocidal war, while at the same time denouncing the agency’s announcement terminating its employees’ contracts without an investigation.
The decisions to halt funding came at an extremely critical time, as UNRWA suffers an acute funding shortage. The United States was the agency’s largest bilateral donor in 2022, contributing more than USD 340 million. This is not the first time the occupation has sought to halt UNRWA’s work: there were previous strenuous attempts in cooperation with former US President Donald Trump, who considered it “corrupt, working to perpetuate the conflict, and granting refugee status not only to the first generation of Palestinians but to their grandchildren as well”.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry denounced the decisions taken regarding UNRWA, describing them as surprising, adding: “The words used regarding the accusation are exaggerated in their meaning, and similar words were not used regarding the killing of more than 26,000 innocent citizens and civilians in Gaza”, and expressing his surprise at the decisions of several countries to halt funding to the organisation.
The minister questioned the timing of these accusations and this campaign: is it linked to the International Court of Justice’s decision and an attempt to divert attention from this ruling regarding what is happening in Gaza? Is collective punishment being applied to all the Strip’s employees and UNRWA staff? And is this collective punishment, in limiting the organisation’s ability to provide humanitarian aid, an extension of the collective punishment of the Palestinian people in Gaza? He stressed that attention must be paid to these questions.
In 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was established to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians displaced by the conflict with the Israeli occupation, and it began its work in 1950 in five areas: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Its aid and services reached more than 5.9 million Palestinian refugees registered with the agency in 58 camps in 2023, and the agency provides education, health care, social services, infrastructure and emergency assistance.
