El Sisi attends Arab Summit in Bahrain: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and other Arab leaders collectively called for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Rafah and condemned Israel’s “obstruction of ceasefire efforts” at the Arab Summit in the Bahraini capital Manama on Thursday. The Arab leaders also called for an international peace conference to resolve the issue.

El Sisi decried the lack of a “genuine international political will to end the occupation and address the root-causes of the conflict,” which he says should be done through implementing a two-state solution with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

During his time in Bahrain: El Sisi also met separately with his counterparts from Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Djibouti, as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad Al Alimi on the sidelines of the conference.

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Egypt to head the D-8 for the next year and a half: Egypt has taken over the rotating presidency of the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation and will head the group until the end of 2025, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. During its tenure, Egypt will be focusing on women- and youth-empowerment through support to SMEs, as well as the harnessing of IT and communications to enhance trade.

On the agenda: Egypt aims to set up several networks, including those of economic research centers and diplomatic training centers that will benefit all D-8 member states — Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt. It will work on D-8’s ongoing efforts to set up a center to support SMEs, a fund to support sustainable projects, and a seed bank to bolster sustainable agriculture efforts.

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