The Egyptian House of Representatives is preparing to begin its second session within days, amid anticipation that the “Personal Status” draft law will return to the forefront of discussions, after it was referred by the government to the Council last May, and the end of the first session without discussing its articles in detail.
The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Counselor Hani Hanna, confirmed in recent statements that “the draft personal status and local administration laws are the government’s top priorities during the new session,” explaining that the government has fulfilled its role in preparing them and sent them to Parliament.
Referring the “Personal Status” Law to the “Representatives” sparked extensive discussions among jurists and institutions concerned with women’s rights and the family, especially regarding the articles regulating oral divorce, polygamy, and custody.
Jawaher Al-Taher, director of the “Access to Justice” program at the Egyptian Women’s Issues Foundation, says that the Foundation is following the developments of the draft law and the discussions expected regarding it during the new session, and will continue to present its observations and proposals on its articles, “in a way that ensures access to more just and balanced legislation for all parties of the family.”
She added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “The institution welcomes the trend towards collecting disparate rules into one law.” But she believes that the project needs “amendments that guarantee equality between spouses and do not reproduce existing imbalances within the family.”
It also proposes unifying all family disputes within one judicial file, not legally taking into account undocumented marriage or divorce, while establishing a transitional period to reconcile the existing situation, in addition to developing mechanisms for real income disclosure in alimony claims, and expanding the role of the Family Support Fund to ensure the speedy disbursement of dues when it is not possible to implement judgments.
Divorce and custody disputes
The draft “Personal Status” or “Family Law” law sparked widespread controversy when it was referred to the House of Representatives during the previous session. The controversy focused on articles related to restricting divorce procedures during the first three years of marriage, obliging the husband to document it within 15 days of its occurrence, in addition to allowing a request to annul the marriage contract when it is proven that there is a significant defect, or if one of the parties has been exposed to fundamental fraud.
The lawyer specializing in personal status cases, Atef Samir, doubts the ability of “obligating the husband to document the verbal divorce within a specific period to end disputes proving its occurrence,” and explains that “the current law actually allows filing a lawsuit to prove the divorce, but the crisis appears when the husband pronounces it away from the notary and then denies it later.”
He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The husband may divorce his wife while they are in the same place, then he denies it, so she is forced to file a lawsuit to prove the divorce and bring witnesses, and the husband may say that he did not intend to divorce.”
Samir believes that amending documentation procedures alone does not resolve the problems associated with proving the incident and protecting the wife’s rights.
Al-Azhar had announced last May that the draft law had not been officially presented to it, and that it had not participated in its drafting. It explained at the time that it would express its legitimate opinion on the draft law after it was referred to it by the House of Representatives.
However, the head of the “Committee for Preparing the Draft Law,” Counselor Abdul Rahman Muhammad, said at the time that the committee sought the assistance of some scholars from Al-Azhar and the Fatwa House in their advisory capacities, without them being official members.
The controversy also extends to rearranging those entitled to custody. So that the father is in second place immediately after the mother, and the “visiting” is organized to allow the non-custodian to take the child outside the sighting area, and return him after the specified period has expired.
Samir supports “regulating counseling,” but stresses “the need to subject it to controls that ensure it is not used to put pressure on the custodial party.” He says: “Consultation must have specific conditions and duration, and guarantees must be available to prevent one of the parents from traveling abroad with the child.”
It is also expected that the upcoming parliamentary discussions will witness “extended disagreements regarding oral divorce, custody, and guardianship,” and it is suggested that judges, lawyers, and those with practical experience in family courts be involved in parliamentary committee discussions before reaching the final formulation, so that the draft articles reflect the problems of actual implementation.
He adds: “It is necessary to study the reality well, and seek help from the expertise of those working in family courts. It is not permissible to impose provisions on a general basis without restrictions that guarantee the correctness of their application.”
Other legislation
Member of the House of Representatives, Muhammad Amer, told Asharq Al-Awsat that there are a number of pieces of legislation expected to be discussed by the House of Representatives during the next session, “most notably the Personal Status Law; Because of its great importance and direct impact on the Egyptian family and society as a whole.”
Representatives and political parties represented in Parliament intend to submit proposals to make amendments to some laws during the second session, including the “Law for Practicing the Pharmacy Profession, and the Law Regulating Daily, Temporary, and Seasonal Workers.”
According to Amer, “There are also laws related to local administration, in addition to a number of economic and social legislation that directly affect the life of citizens.”
He points out that the order of priorities depends on the draft laws that the government will submit, as well as the proposals submitted by representatives, and then what is referred to the specific committees for study and discussion before presenting it to the plenary session of the Council.
Days after a visit by the Egyptian Minister of Transport, Kamel Al-Wazir, to the Sinai Peninsula, during which he inspected a railway line provided by the Egyptian government to connect Sinai with the cities overlooking the Suez Canal, Hebrew reports expressed Israeli concern about the new transportation networks, and claimed that they “strengthen the Egyptian presence on the border.”
Egyptian experts considered that the Israeli allegations are related to a media plan adopted by the far-right government in Israel about a month before the general elections there, indicating that there is a need for a strong government to stand up to what it describes as “hostilities” coming from areas neighboring Israel. They also reflect concern about Egyptian development projects that aim to secure the Sinai Peninsula, “which collides with Israeli expansionist ambitions,” according to their statements to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Development projects
The Israeli “Natsiv Net” platform said that the Sinai railway project, which extends 500 kilometers to connect the logistical heart of Egypt deep into the peninsula all the way to Taba, “raises strategic concern” in Tel Aviv, as it is “a dramatic transformation that goes beyond being just civilian infrastructure.”
Israeli concerns, according to the Hebrew platform, are focused “on the potential logistical and military dimension.” The report claimed that railways “have the ability to transport huge amounts of equipment, goods and personnel at a speed tens of times faster than truck transport on desert roads.”
On September 18, Egyptian Minister of Transport Kamel Al-Wazir inspected a railway line with a total length of 500 kilometers, linking the canal cities (Suez, Ismailia, and Port Said) to Sinai. He pointed out that the ports of Al-Arish and Taba will be connected by a network of railways and highways, passing through dry ports and logistics areas.
Egypt is proceeding with its development projects in various areas in Sinai, and the government is talking about a “boom” there in recent years. At the end of 2023, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stated that his government had spent more than 600 billion pounds (about 11.6 billion dollars) on development projects in Sinai over 10 years, which included projects in various development sectors, starting with infrastructure, roads, housing, water, and tunnels.
In early October 2024, the Egyptian authorities celebrated the first passenger train to enter North Sinai Governorate in 50 years, as part of the “Arish-Taba” corridor project, which connects the governorate to the rest of Egypt. At that time, the Egyptian Ministry of Transport announced the start of trial operation of railway trains on the 100-kilometre Al-Ferdan-Bir al-Abd railway line.
The Al-Arish-Taba corridor is one of the integrated international logistics corridors that will contribute to transforming Egypt into a regional center for logistical transport and transit trade, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Transport.
Pre-election atmosphere
Military and strategic expert, Major General Samir Faraj, believes that the Hebrew newspapers are working to “intimidate Israeli public opinion with the presence of hostilities from different directions, and to delude voters before the general elections there that they need a strong government, and to set an example of the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to defend them,” adding: “The closer the election date, the more frequent such reports.”
He added, in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, that the Israeli media “is trying to create crises to serve the Netanyahu government, and Egypt is well aware of this and is working to develop Sinai in accordance with the goals of protecting national security,” noting that establishing railway plans supports accelerating development plans.
According to the Egyptian Minister of Transport, “The railway line supports the transportation and logistics system, and will serve the transportation of passengers and goods. It will also serve residential, industrial and mining clusters in Sinai by linking factories with railway links linked to the railway network nationwide.”
“The Speech of Oppression”
Ahmed Fouad Anwar, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs and professor of Hebrew studies at Alexandria University, says that the Israeli side always looks at Egypt from a military perspective, and believes that if it is strong in the comprehensive sense, including the strength of the economy, urban expansion, and development, then this will pose a threat to it.
He added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “Israel had previously claimed that the tunnels linking Sinai to the Valley governorates could be used militarily, and the trains linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea could be used for the same purpose, and thus it launched media campaigns aimed at distortion. But this demonstrates the existence of Israeli concern about Egypt’s comprehensive capabilities as an influential regional state.”
Israel views “any Egyptian structural or demographic development in Sinai as a strategic variable that requires careful intelligence monitoring, for fear that this civilian development will turn into a pressure card or a military logistical advantage in any future scenario,” according to what was published by the “Natsiv Net” platform.
Hebrew media had previously warned of expansions taking place at “Al-Joura Airport” in North Sinai, claiming that their goal is “to reduce the air arrival time for Israeli targets to a few minutes, which threatens Israel’s security.”
The former director of the National Defense College, Major General Muhammad Al-Ghobari, stressed that Israel’s presence on the Sinai border requires accelerating the development processes, which faced many difficulties over the decades after Egypt fought several wars before achieving important successes in confronting terrorism nearly a decade ago, which made there a priority for the development of Sinai to increase immunity against any dangers coming from the northeastern border.
He added, in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat: “Israel’s expansionist ideology repeatedly pushes it to promote a discourse of oppression regarding the existence of a danger near its borders that must be dealt with, given that the development of Sinai does not serve the interests of expansion at the expense of the countries of the region.”
Tension between security and military formations has returned to the Libyan capital, with a dispute over deployment on “Al-Qadisiyah Island” in central Tripoli, revealing that the map of security arrangements that was redrawn over the past two years has not been finally stabilized despite the attempts of the interim “unity” government, headed by Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba, to reorganize the presence of the armed forces and security services inside the capital.
The “Mahjoub Brigade,” which belongs to Misrata, announced in a statement, on Saturday evening, its withdrawal, along with the judicial police, from “Al-Qadisiyah Island” in Tripoli, awaiting a meeting with Muhammad bin Ghalboun, Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Affairs, to determine the security points.
The Major General said that the dispute is “security and not personal,” and that it is based on security arrangements that he said allow any force assigned by the Minister of Defense to be stationed anywhere in accordance with the approved security arrangements.
The announcement comes amid tension between the two forces over deployment on the island, an area that has previously witnessed friction between different security formations due to conflicting areas of influence and arrangements for placement.
“Al-Qadisiyah Island” had previously been a point of tension between various formations, including the entry of forces from the “General Security Service” of the Ministry of Interior into it last year, and the subsequent movements of other forces to redeploy to areas in the capital.
The announced withdrawal from “Al-Qadisiyah Island” does not mean a final settlement of the dispute, as the meeting of the concerned parties to determine deployment arrangements remains the next test of the extent of the Dabaiba government’s ability to prevent the disputes between the security forces from turning into new confrontations.
“Security Map”
Previous arrangements between the “unity” government and the “Deterrence Service for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime,” which opposes Dabaiba, included the redeployment of the agency’s forces to a number of locations in Tripoli, after a period of tension over its legal status and locations of its deployment.
Last July, instructions were issued to return the “deterrence apparatus” to a number of its previous positions in the east and center of the capital, in an indication that some see as redrawing the security map in Tripoli.
What increases the complexity of the scene is the multiplicity of parties that undertake security and military tasks in the capital, including forces affiliated with the Ministries of Defense and Interior, the “Deterrence Service,” the Judicial Police, and formations from Misrata and others, which makes any dispute over a deployment point capable of turning into a broader confrontation if it is not settled politically and security-wise.
Since last year's clashes, the Dabaiba government has been trying to reorganize the security map, but at the same time it has resorted to more than one force to ensure security, which has kept the issue of balance between the formations intact. This is clearly evident in the “Tripoli Security Directorate Support Force,” which brought together in one formation elements from agencies and forces that each had different areas of influence and arrangements.
“The Mahjoub Brigade”
The “Mahjoub Brigade” is one of the formations hailing from the city of Misrata, and operates within the framework of the Central Military Region, and is characterized by a collective leadership structure, while the “Judicial Police Service” is officially affiliated with the Ministry of Justice in the “Unit”, and is specialized in guarding courts and prisons, implementing judicial rulings and orders, and transporting prisoners.
Despite its official status, in recent years the agency has witnessed interactions with other armed formations, and frequent changes in its leadership as part of power struggles within the capital.
The “Deterrence Service for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime” stands out as one of the most powerful formations in Tripoli, and is led by Abdel Raouf Kara, and is primarily stationed in the “Mitiga Complex,” which includes the civil airport, the air base, and a main prison in Tripoli.
The agency enjoys broad influence and maintains a high degree of field independence, despite its formal connection to the Presidential Council or the government at different periods, as its relationship with the Dabaiba government witnessed severe tensions last year, before security arrangements returned in July 2026 with the redeployment of its elements to a number of its previous locations in the east and center of the capital.
In addition to these forces, there are other formations such as the “444th Fighting Brigade” and the “111th Brigade,” in addition to units from Misrata and other western cities, and forces affiliated with the Ministries of Defense and Interior.
The Mahjoub Brigade’s announcement of its withdrawal from “Al-Qadisiyah Island” pending a meeting to determine the security points reflects that the issue of the distribution of concentrations has not been finally resolved among the forces on the ground, while the government’s ability to impose unified arrangements and prevent disputes from turning into open clashes remains the biggest challenge facing the stability of the capital in the next stage.
