Egypt and EU agree on urgent need for second phase of Gaza ceasefire

Egypt and the European Union said Thursday that efforts were being made to implement the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

Phase two calls for the establishment of a Board of Peace to oversee the peace process.

During a meeting in Cairo, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the body should begin its work without further delay.

"We are moving in all directions in order to start executing the specifics related to the second phase," Abdelatty said at a joint news conference with Kallas in Cairo.

Under US President Donald Trump's plan, the Board of Peace is supposed to supervise a new technocratic Palestinian government, the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international stabilisation force, additional pullbacks of Israeli troops and reconstruction.

The ceasefire's first phase began in October, days after the two-year anniversary of the initial Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people.

All but one of the 251 hostages taken then have been released, alive or dead, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

"In Gaza, the situation is extremely severe," said Kallas, who denounced both Hamas' refusal to disarm and Israel's restrictions against international NGOS.

"Without NGOs, aid can't reach at the necessary scale in Gaza. There's no justification for the humanitarian situation in Gaza to have deteriorated to the current level," she added.

The Israeli military has killed more than 400 people in Gaza since the ceasefire began in October, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The overall Palestinian death toll from Israel's assaults on Gaza since October 2023 rose to at least 71,391 as of January 6, the ministry said.

Abdelatty said the United States "will announce soon" specifics related to the Gaza Peace Board and the technocrat committee.

Abdelatty and Kallas also discussed potential cooperation on operating the Rafah crossing, where the European Union previously played a role along with Israel and the Palestinian Authority under the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access to facilitate the entry of aid.

The foreign minister also added that Egypt opposes any steps that would deepen the divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.