‘Madame Afaf’ in a PR campaign at Rafah

Near El-Arish International Airport, outside warehouses holding aid shipments that Israel refuses to allow into Gaza, members of the Egyptian Red Crescent/ERC ordered journalists covering Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa’s visit to the Rafah crossing on Aug. 18 not to take photographs inside.

Only the CNN correspondent Becky Anderson, who had just won an exclusive interview with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, was allowed to take photos.

The American correspondent was part of a delegation that included foreign and Arab journalists from outlets such as the BBC and Sky News Arabia. They boarded the same plane with the official Egyptian and Palestinian delegations from Cairo. Egyptian journalists, who also came to cover the event, traveled by bus. None were given access to any official except during the “press conference.”

Upon arrival in El-Arish, the official motorcade, along with the foreign press, headed to the logistics center near the airport. There, they viewed aid-packaging operations, food parcels, and medical storage hangars. The delegation also visited the warehouse of “returned” aid shipments that Israel had refused to admit to Gaza, sending them back through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.

“Madame Afaf” addresses the world

In front of Rafah crossing’s main gate, journalists and broadcasters set up their cameras on the podium built for the event. A red carpet had been rolled out beneath it, flanked by flower vases on either side, with the Egyptian flag as a backdrop. After deliberation, protocol officials removed the decorations when Egyptian journalists objected, deeming them inappropriate against the backdrop of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Youth and Sports transported dozens of young men and women from El-Arish youth centers by bus to form a crowd at the crossing. Egyptian patriotic songs blared through loudspeakers.

Aid trucks were lined up in two queues: one for the Egyptian Red Crescent, the other for the National Alliance for Civil Development Work. Not one of the trucks moved during the entire visit.

As Abdelatty escorted the Palestinian prime minister to the Rafah crossing, he stood at ground zero of the crisis now confronting Cairo.

Egyptian dissidents are rallying outside its embassies and consulates in Europe and the United States, calling for “an end to Gaza’s blockade” and “the opening of Rafah crossing.” When Palestinian citizens of Israel with Islamist leanings picked up the call, Cairo launched a counteroffensive that started with its opponents abroad but did not end with them.

Because deflecting accusations of closing Rafah crossing required pinning responsibility on Israel, these protests became a test of Cairo’s long-standing strategy of “strategic patience” in its dealings with Tel Aviv and Washington. This strategy avoids public disputes with either capital, delivers firm messages only in closed rooms, and projects a public stance of “Madame Afaf”—the archetype of Egyptian bureaucracy—burying unwanted demands under endless technical, administrative, and political details.

Thus, alongside mobilizing pro-government crowds near Egyptian embassies abroad—where some now face criminal charges and prosecutions—Egypt’s Foreign Ministry launched a public relations campaign aimed at the world. In doing so, it escalated its rhetoric against Israel.

Over the past month, Rafah saw visits by international figures who documented that the crossing was open on the Egyptian side for aid delivery, but was shut down on the Palestinian side, which Israel has occupied and whose facilities it has destroyed. These delegations also reviewed the aid delivery mechanisms.

On July 30, Danish Ambassador to Cairo Lars Bo Møller visited Rafah with North Sinai Governor Maj. Gen. Khaled Megawer. Two weeks later, a delegation from The Elders, including former Irish President Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, toured the crossing along with UN officials in Egypt, led by Elena Panova, the UN resident coordinator.

But the peak of the campaign came with Minister Abdelatty’s visit to Rafah, his first, with the high-level Palestinian delegation. On the plane with the foreign press corps, he granted CNN’s correspondent an exclusive interview, summarizing Egypt’s stance on the forced displacement of Palestinians, the siege they are enduring, and the closure of the crossing. On the ground, he allowed foreign reporters to film freely throughout, from aid warehouses to El-Arish General Hospital.

During the visit, the Egyptian minister explained that humanitarian aid enters through a side gate next to the Rafah crossing’s main entryway. Trucks then drive 4 km south to the Karm Abu Salem commercial crossing, where shipments are unloaded on the Israeli-controlled side. There, most of them are blocked after inspection.

Delegations leave, the blockade remains

In true “Madame Afaf” fashion—meaning bureaucratic adherence to petty rules and paper shuffling—the Foreign Ministry ran a public relations campaign at home and abroad to clear itself of complicity in the siege on Gaza. And in that, it largely succeeded.

But the campaign was not paired with serious diplomatic pressure on Israel to end the siege. Nor did Abdelatty face questions about Israel’s unchecked power to tighten the blockade without diplomatic cost. Between July 27 and Aug. 19, only 2,556 aid trucks carrying roughly 18,000 tons entered Gaza—a stark reminder that the Israeli government controls every channel.

Meanwhile, in El-Arish, the first receiving point for aid via land, sea, and air, supplies pile up in warehouses. The largest belongs to the Egyptian Red Crescent, with massive tents to hold the backlog. It has become a stop on international delegations’ tours. One tent is nicknamed the “rejections tent,” storing aid Israel has sent back. Entry was permitted for all visitors, but photography was banned—except for the CNN correspondent.

On the road to Rafah crossing, a newly built gateway stood two km before it, flanked by high concrete walls extending to the border. Painted on it was the yellow symbol of world peace—a symbol that no visitor, foreign or local, has managed to translate into tangible steps towards peace or food for the people of Gaza.

Egypt’s PR campaign may have succeeded in clearing its record and shifting blame to the raging bull that has shattered the Middle East’s china, but it has failed to bring food or peace to Palestinians in Gaza—or to grant Egyptian media the right to investigate and question. Above all, it revealed the fragility of old political systems, capable only of avoiding blame.