Gaza was also at the centre of a meeting between Qatar and Egypt’s foreign ministers on the sidelines of the supreme committee meeting in Doha.

Qatar and Egypt held the fifth supreme committee meeting in Doha on Saturday to bolster ties after resuming relations following the 2017 regional rift.

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry co-chaired the meeting in the Gulf state.

“The session discussed cooperation relations between the two fraternal countries and ways to support and develop them, especially in fields of trade, investment, diplomacy, social affairs, education, and youth,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The meeting also dealt with the developments in the war in Gaza, where Qatar and Egypt are playing a critical mediation role in hopes of reaching a complete ceasefire.

Both countries had mediated a pause between November 24 and December 1, enabling the release of at least 110 Israeli and foreign captives from Gaza. 

Doha and Cairo are currently racing against time to secure another deal before the beginning of Ramadan as the war nears five months.

Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since the start of the war while creating a humanitarian catastrophe, with starvation in Gaza reaching unprecedented levels.

Gaza was also at the centre of a meeting between Sheikh Mohammed and Shoukry on the sidelines of the supreme committee meeting in Doha.

“They also discussed the joint efforts between the two sides along with regional and international partners to reach an immediate ceasefire and the continuation of bringing humanitarian aid into the Strip without obstacles,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement on the meeting.

Bilateral relations

During the committee’s gathering in Doha, Qatar and Egypt signed a memorandum of understanding over diplomatic cooperation between the Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Egypt’s Institute for Diplomatic Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Another MoU covered social affairs, signed between the Ministry of Social Development and Family and Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity for the years 2024, 2025 and 2026.

The Investment Promotion Agency Qatar, Invest Qatar, and Egypt’s General Authority for Investment and Free Zones also signed a MoU over “enhancing bilateral investment relations.”

Formed in 2022, the committee has been holding meetings in a bid to boost Qatar and Egypt’s bilateral ties after both countries resumed diplomatic ties in 2021.

In 2017, Egypt joined Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in severing ties with Qatar while imposing an illegal air, land and sea blockade on the country—triggering the region’s worst diplomatic crisis.

The quartet accused Qatar of supporting terrorism at the time, though Doha had consistently and vehemently denied those allegations as “baseless.”

By 2021, the Gulf row effectively came to an end with the signing of the Al-Ula Declaration at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Saudi Arabia.

Just hours after signing the historic accord, Qatar Diar Real Estate Company officially opened its prestigious and wholly-owned St. Regis Hotel in Cairo. 

Then, in March 2022, the Gulf state announced the signing of investment deals totalling $5 billion between Doha and Cairo during the visit of Sheikh Mohammed to Egypt.

Qatar is also the third largest Arab investor in Egypt, with 160 Qatari companies pumping nearly $2 billion worth of investments into Cairo’s economy.

Last November,  Qatar’s Al Mana Group announced plans to invest more than $60 million in Egypt this year, mostly in the automotive sector.

In October 2023, Egypt’s EGAS awarded QatarEnergy a new offshore exploration block following a “competitive” bidding round. 

QatarEnergy is set to hold 33% of a consortium that also comprises Italy’s ENI (34%) and the United Kingdom’s BP (33%).