EGYPT PERSPECTIVE

Egyptian Streets delivers a short but scathing article containing two pieces of information absent from Western coverage. First, the figures for deaths in detention: 326 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since 1967, and 97 bodies remain detained, including 86 since the Gaza war. Second, Cairo's official condemnation, describing the law as a "dangerous and unprecedented escalation" violating the Geneva Conventions. Egypt, which has its own extensive use of the death penalty — it is the third largest executor in the Arab world — does not criticize the principle but rather the discriminatory application. This is no accident: Cairo has been the guarantor of the peace treaty with Israel since 1979 and the historical mediator for Gaza. Criticizing a law that specifically targets Palestinians is a calculation of regional politics, not an advocacy for human rights. Egypt is also the only Arab country in the corpus with sourced coverage in English. Egyptian Streets cites UN experts who worry about vague definitions of "terrorism" that could lead to executions for non-terrorist acts. Amnesty International is quoted: the law could constitute a war crime. The article also mentions that 326 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli detention since 1967, and that 97 bodies are still being held — figures that only Middle Eastern press documents with this precision. Cairo, guardian of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, cannot ignore a law targeting a people for which it is historically the diplomatic protector — even if its own prison practices are far from exemplary.