Egypt has begun constructing a closed area surrounded by high concrete walls along its border with Gaza, apparently intended to house Palestinians fleeing the threat of an Israeli attack on the southern city of Rafah.
photos and Video released by Sinai Human Rights Foundation The monitoring group SFHR showed workers using heavy machinery to install concrete barriers and security towers around properties on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.
A video dated February 15 showed little evidence of authorities installing water or other infrastructure. Satellite images released on the same day by Planet Labs show plots of land adjacent to the Gaza border being cleared.
SFHR said on social media It said the video shows efforts to “establish a walled enclave on the border with the Gaza Strip, with the aim of receiving refugees in the event of a mass exodus.”
Israel’s shelling and ground invasion of Gaza since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack has displaced an estimated 1.7 million people internally, most of whom have moved south in recent weeks and moved south to Rafah, according to the United Nations. More than 1 million people live in the area, a significant increase from the prewar population of 280,000.
Egyptian authorities have repeatedly worried that Israel’s actions could force millions of Palestinians to flee across the border into the Sinai Mountains, amid concerns that displaced people may never return. has been expressed. Egypt has objected to any suggestion by Israeli ministers that Palestinians could flee to northern Sinai. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri, was denied They called it “forced displacement of Palestinians from their lands.”
US President Joe Biden again warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call late Thursday not to proceed with military operations in Rafah without a “credible and workable plan” to protect civilians. did. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed early Friday to reject “international mandates” for a long-term solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the Munich Security Conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said there were no plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and that Israel would coordinate plans with Egypt for refugees for the hundreds of thousands of people in the city of Rafah.
Asked where the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the city would go, Katz said that once Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Yunis, was cleared of Hamas fighters, they could return there or to the west of the enclave. He suggested that it could be done.
“We’ll deal with it,” Katz said. [with] After talking to Egypt about it, Rafa. We will adjust it, make a peace agreement with them and find a place where we will not harm the Egyptians. We will adjust everything and not harm their interests. ”
Egyptian officials threatened to withdraw From Egypt’s landmark 1978 peace treaty with Israel, signed during Israel’s ground assault on Rafah. Airstrikes began in Rafah on Monday in an Israeli operation to free two hostages that killed at least 67 Palestinians, health officials said.
Egypt has extensively fortified its border with Gaza with barbed wire and deployed 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers in northern Sinai.
“Egypt wants to portray this construction as a contingency and is preparing for an influx of Palestinians if that happens, but the border fence “We have strengthened our defense over the past month and made it impossible to break through.”Unless it is intentionally detonated or opened.. If you look at how all the refugee and prisoner of war camps around the world are built, this is exactly the case.Looks like a prison [or] Probably a refugee camp. ”
North Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdelfadil Shousha told a Saudi-owned television news channel. al arabiya The border construction was said to be aimed at cataloging homes destroyed as part of the Egyptian army’s fight against jihadist militants and a decade-long operation in northern Sinai.
He added: “Egypt is preparing for all possible scenarios should Israel carry out military operations in the Palestinian border governorates.”
Meanwhile, those associated with the Egyptian state have profited from Palestinians desperately trying to flee. Palestinians say they paid $10,000 (£7,941) each to a network connected to Egyptian authorities to leave Gaza across the Rafah border.
Elsewhere on Friday, authorities said a gunman killed two people at a bus stop in southern Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the entire country was on the front lines of war.
Four other people were wounded in the shooting near the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, Israeli police said.
“We have issued a national alert,” Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai told reporters at the scene. He did not provide details about the attacker.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement: “The killers are not just from Gaza, but they are trying to kill us all. We will continue to use all our strength on all fronts and everywhere until we restore security and tranquility to all Israelis.” I will continue to fight until I achieve complete victory.”
