Egypt has said it will host an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo on February 27, 2025 after President Donald Trump proposed moving Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip, an idea that has set off sharp opposition from key U.S. allies in the region.
The announcement places Egypt at the center of an increasingly urgent diplomatic effort to coordinate an Arab response to a proposal that officials in Cairo, Amman and elsewhere have rejected publicly. According to the evidence packet, the summit will focus on what Egypt called “new and dangerous developments” tied to the Gaza crisis and to the broader political stakes around the Palestinian cause.
The move comes after Trump raised the plan during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The AP reporting supplied in the packet says the proposal would involve resettling Palestinians from Gaza and would also put the United States in control of the territory. Those ideas have drawn resistance not only from Egypt, but also from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, countries Washington typically counts as strategic partners.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said the summit was requested after consultations with Arab states at the highest level, including the State of Palestine. The phrasing in the statement suggests the gathering is intended to be more than a symbolic show of opposition. It is being framed as a coordinated regional meeting on a matter that has become politically explosive in a matter of days.
For Egypt, the summit also reflects a longstanding concern about any plan that could push Palestinians across the border into Sinai. Cairo has repeatedly treated such scenarios as a direct national-security issue as well as a political red line. The AP report in the packet says Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi dismissed Trump’s call, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II also rejected it.
Trump has insisted that Arab governments would eventually accept the idea, but the regional reaction so far points in the opposite direction. The emergency summit appears designed to show that Arab capitals want to shape the response early, before the proposal gains more political momentum or is recast in other diplomatic channels.
The timing matters because the Gaza war has already strained regional politics and sharpened debate over who should govern, secure and rebuild the enclave. Egypt’s announcement suggests Arab leaders want to address not just the immediate idea of resettlement, but also the longer-term question of what happens to Gaza if no durable political settlement emerges.
That makes the summit a test of whether Arab states can present a unified position on a conflict that has repeatedly divided them. It also underscores how quickly a single U.S. proposal can ripple through the region, forcing governments to respond on both humanitarian and strategic grounds.
By hosting the summit, Egypt is signaling that it intends to lead that response rather than simply react to it. The Cairo meeting will likely be watched closely for any sign that Arab leaders can turn shared opposition into a more concrete diplomatic position.
