Israel’s seizure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt has sparked anger from the Egyptian government, which has warned that Israel is endangering the landmark 1978 Camp David Accords that normalized relations between the two countries. Despite the increasingly critical tone about Israel’s war on Gaza, however, Egyptian authorities have closely coordinated with Israel in decisions around allowing humanitarian aid in through the Rafah crossing and allowing Palestinians out of Gaza. Egyptian security forces have also locked up over 120 people in Egypt, placing them in pretrial detention on terrorism charges for expressing solidarity with Palestine. “There is a fear within the system that allowing people to voice support and solidarity with Palestinians’ opposition to Israel will extend not just to criticism of the Egyptians’ official position vis-à-vis the war … but also extend to the domestic situation, the human rights situation, the unprecedented economic crisis the country is going through,” says Egyptian journalist and human rights advocate Hossam Bahgat. He is executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and was banned from traveling outside of Egypt for the past eight years, with his assets frozen, as part of an Egyptian government crackdown on human rights NGOs. In March, Egyptian authorities finally closed the case against EIPR and other human rights groups and lifted the travel ban, allowing Bahgat to join us now in our New York studio.
Please check back later for full transcript.
Our most important fundraising appeal of the year
December is the most critical time of year for Truthout, because our nonprofit news is funded almost entirely by individual donations from readers like you. So before you navigate away, we ask that you take just a second to support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation.
This year is a little different. We are up against a far-reaching, wide-scale attack on press freedom coming from the Trump administration. 2025 was a year of frightening censorship, news industry corporate consolidation, and worsening financial conditions for progressive nonprofits across the board.
We can only resist Trump’s agenda by cultivating a strong base of support. The right-wing mediasphere is funded comfortably by billionaire owners and venture capitalist philanthropists. At Truthout, we have you.
We’ve set an ambitious target for our year-end campaign — a goal of $250,000 to keep up our fight against authoritarianism in 2026. Please take a meaningful action in this fight: make a one-time or monthly donation to Truthout before December 31. If you have the means, please dig deep.