Egypt Issues Permits for 168 New Churches

Women pass by a Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Women pass by a Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
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Egypt Issues Permits for 168 New Churches

Women pass by a Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Women pass by a Coptic church in Tanta, Egypt, April 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Egypt announced on Friday legalizing up to 168 churches and monasteries with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly affirming that the process will be timely.

Despite the committee headed by Madbouly, who is also the country’s Housing Minister, approving the legalization of 168 churches and buildings, only 151 applications have received permits so far, with the body requiring additional documents for the remaining 17.

Madbouly instructed concerned officials to set a time frame, during which churches and buildings that meet the conditions of Law No. 80 of 2016 will be finalized.

To date, the committee has legalized a total of 508 churches and buildings since its founding.

In a meeting attended by ministers of justice, antiquities, and parliamentary affairs, as well as other concerned authorities, the legalization committee reviewed studies carried out over the past two months on the conditions of the churches that have requested legalization.

Madbouly urged relevant authorities to submit a follow-up report to the committee’s next meeting on the findings of smaller governorate-specific commissions formed by the PM to follow up on church legalization.

These smaller commissions include representatives of NGOs, Christian sects, and other relevant authorities.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s Ministry of Higher Education denied reports on the government moving towards privatizing university hospitals before first implementing a new comprehensive health insurance law.

The Ministry, in a Friday statement, confirmed that university hospitals will remain state owned and stressed that they will continue to provide medical and health services to citizens free of charge.

As for reported rumors on state bureaus imposing a new registration fee of 2,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately $111) for marriage contracts, Egyptian authorities denied the news, saying the Justice Ministry has stressed that fees remain unchanged.



US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

The United States will keep backing Syria’s government and has no “Plan B” to working with it to unite the war‑scarred country back together, still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barrack – Washington’s ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy for Syria, who is also on a short assignment in Lebanon – called last week’s Israeli strikes inside Syria “badly timed” and said they had “complicated efforts to stabilize the region.”

Barrack spoke in Beirut after more than a week of clashes in Sweida province between Druze militiamen and Sunni Bedouin tribes.

Over the weekend he brokered what he described as a limited ceasefire between Syria and Israel, aimed only at halting the fighting in Sweida. Syrian government troops have since redeployed in the area and evacuated civilians from both communities on Monday, he said.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”

However, he said Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel’s contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, the brothers of our brothers the Israeli Druze”.

Katz added: “Anyone who criticizes the attacks is unaware of the facts,” he continued. It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.