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Work on Building New Egyptian Capital to Continue Despite Challenges, Sisi Affirms

President El-Sisi inaugurated the "Digital Egypt" project (Egyptian Presidency)
President El-Sisi inaugurated the "Digital Egypt" project (Egyptian Presidency)
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Work on Building New Egyptian Capital to Continue Despite Challenges, Sisi Affirms

President El-Sisi inaugurated the "Digital Egypt" project (Egyptian Presidency)
President El-Sisi inaugurated the "Digital Egypt" project (Egyptian Presidency)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi asserted the New Administrative Capital would be established despite the "costs and difficult conditions," in reference to the economic crisis the country is facing due to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The New Administrative Capital is located 75 kilometers east of Cairo, holding several projects worth around $300 billion.

Sisi launched the Digital Egypt platform Wednesday to provide electronic services to all Egyptian people.

He stressed the importance of continuing to work on the New Capital despite the costs and difficult conditions, acknowledging there were doubts during the past five years regarding establishing the capital.

Some officials, including lawmakers, call for halting the construction in the new cities to face the economic and food crisis.

Sisi reiterated that the New Administrative Capital Company established the city through its resources, not with government funds, and the Company asked the cabinet for an annual fee of EGP4 billion as usufructs to use the government district.

The Egyptian cabinet held its first preliminary meeting in the New Capital last December.

Sisi noted that the employees of the new communication centers had been completely secured, adding that the cost of shifting towards digital processes, AI, and the new republic are estimated at EGP 100 billion in civil construction only.

"I would not be exaggerating if I said that to automate the Government District in a way that provides very advanced work for the Egyptian state — whether through the work of data centers or the part that employs at least 50,000 persons, the secured network, and other centers — it would cost about EGP 100 billion," said Sisi.

He also explained that the Egyptian state is digitizing to transform the country into a new republic; therefore, the cost will be high.

Sisi mentioned that the goal of celebrating "Digital Egypt" projects is to shed light on the importance of this project for the future of the country and its children, indicating the state's readiness to bear the expenses of 100,000 IT students if they meet the requirements.

He added that the state is ready to spend between EGP 10 to 12 billion to fully qualify those students.

The President witnessed the launch of the "Digital Egypt" platform and several projects via video conference.

The projects will include cable landing stations in Ras Gharib, Zafrana, Sidi Kerir, International Data Center in Cairo, WE Joint School of Applied ICT, Egyptian Digital Creativity Centers, and the development of the Postal Museum.

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Arab World

Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
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Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)

Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed armed groups in the volatile West Bank city.

A military spokesperson declined to give details but said the operation was "relatively similar" to but in a smaller area than one last August, in which hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and helicopters raided Jenin and other flashpoint cities in the occupied West Bank.

It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.

At least four Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday, after 10 were killed a day earlier, Palestinian health services said, and residents reported constant gunfire and explosions.

Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the fighters' increasing use of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were a particular focus of the operation, which included armored bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.

As the operation continued, many Palestinians left their homes in the camp, a crowded township for descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war of Israel's creation.

"Thank God, we were at home, we went out and asked an ambulance to take us out," said a woman who gave her name as Um Mohammad.

Before the raid, which came two weeks after a shooting attack blamed by Israel on gunmen from Jenin, roadblocks and checkpoints had been thrown up across the West Bank in an effort to slow down movement across the territory.

As the raid began, Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces pulled out after having conducted a weeks-long operation to try to reassert control over the refugee camp, dominated by Palestinian factions that are hostile to the PA, which exercises limited governance in parts of the West Bank.

The operation came just two days after the launch of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, with Israeli troops pulling back from their positions in many areas of the enclave.

LEARNING FROM GAZA

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military's security plan in the West Bank and was "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza".

"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of (Israeli) settlers (in the West Bank) and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said in a statement.

Israel's campaign in Gaza, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by bands of Hamas-led gunmen, has left much of the coastal enclave in ruins after 15 months of bombardment. The military has said it has refined its urban warfare tactics in the light of its experience in Gaza, but Shoshani declined to provide details of how such lessons were being applied in Jenin.

Israel considers Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that are backed by Iran as part of a multifront war waged by an axis that includes Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Newly installed US President Donald Trump has appointed a string of senior officials with close ties to the settler movement, and his return to the White House has been welcomed by hardline pro-settler ministers who have pledged to expand settlement building in the West Bank.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries deem Israel's settlements on territory taken in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.