Cairo Needs Cash and Gazans Need Shelter. Can a Deal Be Brokered?

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The war has put Egypt in the spotlight—but taking in Palestinian refugees is fraught.

By Adam Tooze, a columnist at Foreign Policy and director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Sign up for Adam’s Chartbook newsletter here, and Cameron Abadi, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy.

A young man holds up a sign that reads “Save Gaza” in handwritten red paint. He also holds a Palestinian flag as he stands in front of the stone walls of a mosque in Cairo.

A man holds a sign that reads, “Save Gaza,” during a protest supporting the Palestinian people following Friday noon prayers outside the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo on Oct 20. Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images

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It was inevitable that Egypt would be dragged into the war between Israel and Hamas. As a border state of both the Gaza Strip and Israel, Egypt is now at the center of diplomacy over humanitarian aid, the possible movement of Palestinian refugees, and potentially, the negotiation of a cease-fire. Yet prior to the war, to the extent that Egypt was in the news at all, it was for very different reasons: Financial experts had been observing its mounting debt problems with growing concern. This past summer, Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait announced that the debt-to-GDP ratio was expected to reach 97 percent during the summer, a colossal 16.8 percent increase from June 2022.

Adam Tooze is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a history professor and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of Chartbook, a newsletter on economics, geopolitics, and history. Twitter: @adam_tooze

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @CameronAbadi