The Prime Minister of Egypt, Mostafa Madbouly, took advantage of his speech before the UN General Assembly this Friday to reiterate his Government's "categorical" opposition to any initiative that seeks to expel the Palestinian population from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and from the Gaza Strip, emphasizing that "managing the occupation instead of ending it is living in an illusion."
"Egypt reaffirms its categorical rejection of any attempt to displace the Palestinian people from their land, whether we are talking about the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, including Jerusalem," he stated from New York, which is hosting the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Madbouly has focused on the fact that the ceasefire reached in October 2025 in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, the end of Israel's "daily violations," the unhindered arrival of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the projects to stop the offensive and rebuild the Palestinian enclave "are not humanitarian stages, but rather the fundamental milestones of a serious political process that addresses the root causes of the conflict."
In this context, he warned that the situation faced by the inhabitants of Gaza "cannot be normalized, cannot become a prolonged crisis" and reminded the international community that "it has a clear responsibility to stop the systematic violations of International Law by Israel."
"This cannot happen by uprooting a people from their land. Stability can be achieved in the region, but ignoring the suffering of the Palestinian people and simply managing the occupation instead of ending it is simply living in an illusion," he pointed out.
The head of the Egyptian Government has insisted on the need for an independent Palestinian state with the borders of 1967 and East Jerusalem as its capital, an institutional framework that allows Palestinians to decide about their present and future, in addition to "rejecting collective punishment and providing guarantees of respect for International Humanitarian Law" and "recognizing the rights of Palestinians as inalienable, not as bargaining chips that depend on electoral calculations or other interests."
The prime minister has assured that Egypt will continue to provide humanitarian aid, but has claimed "to move from managing the tragedy to uprooting its causes." "Egypt is committed to respecting institutions, rejecting the dismantling of states, and prioritizing political solutions, as well as avoiding the logic of force and fait accompli," he added.
At another point in his speech, he referred to water security, emphasizing that it is not only an economic factor, but "it is the lung on which the existence and survival of our society depends." He defended that shared resources must be managed "through good neighborliness and binding agreements with International Law" and not through "unilateral" decisions or policies of faits accomplis.
"Development and water security are not objectives that contradict each other.
We do not oppose the right of any people to access development, but we want a fair and clear principle to be applied. The development of one part cannot depend on harming another," he emphasized.
Likewise, he has advocated for reforming the Security Council to make it more representative of the current balance of power, as, he indicated, its members "reflect historical imbalances that are already outdated." In the face of a rapidly changing geopolitical scene, he defended a disarmament process "in which there are no double standards."
"We are also committed to establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, as well as other weapons. Collective security does not come from accumulating weapons of destruction, but from having obligations, rules, and also having political will that prioritizes stopping escalation, rather than responding when you are already in a crisis," he concluded.