The Egyptian authorities are rushing to shield and militarily reinforce their border area with Gaza while Israel studies extending its devastating military operation to the city of Rafah, the southernmost urban center of the Strip and the only one that has not yet been assaulted by the forces. Israeli land forces.
The reinforcements ordered by Cairo have been especially notable since the beginning of this month.
They seek to strengthen their position on the border and avoid a massive expulsion of Palestinians to their territory.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, estimated in the first days of February that around two-thirds of the 1.7 million displaced people in the Strip (75% of them) were overcrowded in the Rafah governorate. its population).
The humanitarian situation in the area is marked by an acute shortage of drinking water, food, medicine and shelter, which has pushed thousands of Gazans to settle in tents erected a few meters from the border fence with Egypt, at the last confines of the enclave.
Despite the fragile humanitarian situation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Saturday that he had ordered planning an assault on Rafah, but so far no plan has been detailed to evacuate those trapped there.
Faced with increasing pressure in its backyard, Egypt has sent some 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers to the northeastern Sinai Peninsula in the past two weeks to bolster security on its border with Gaza, two have said. Egyptian security sources told the Reuters news agency.
The Sinai Human Rights Foundation, a local organization, has also detected in the last week the activity of an Egyptian helicopter flying over the border and has released images of the installation of three layers of barbed wire on top of a separation fence. between Sinai and recently built Gaza.
Egyptian authorities are also erecting brick walls on the border at intervals, as reported by sources in Rafah and in Egypt to the independent Egyptian media
Mada Masr
.
“Egyptian security measures on the border with Gaza are the highest provided for in the specifications stipulated in the security annex of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, both in terms of surveillance and alert measures by the security services. ”says military expert and retired Brigadier General Samir Ragheb.
Currently, there are three barriers along the border between Egypt and Gaza.
The last of them, a concrete wall about six meters high, was erected at the end of last year after carrying out work on one of the two walls that were already built, according to the Sinaí Foundation.
Strips of earth were also dug about 200 meters from the fence.
In the last decade, as part of a broad anti-terrorist campaign in northern Sinai and the tight blockade of the Palestinian territory, the Egyptian army had already erected another iron and steel fence and another six-story concrete wall along its border. meters high and another six meters underground.
After this, it also established a restricted space of five kilometers in which only military, police and border guard forces are allowed to enter.
Shortly after the start of the Israeli military offensive following the Hamas attacks on October 7, the Egyptian army also sent military reinforcements – including officers, soldiers and vehicles – to the border area, the Sinai Foundation reports, but it is unclear whether these units remain deployed.
In the first days of its military operation, Israel also bombed the Rafah crossing several times and, on at least one occasion, there were hits on Egyptian national soil.
In recent weeks, Israeli aviation has once again intensified its activity in the southern town and so far in February it has attacked areas close to Egyptian territory on at least six occasions, according to the previous organization.
On the tightrope
In the last decade, the authorities of Egypt and Israel had strengthened their ties, especially thanks to their harmony on security matters in the Sinai and Gaza, but the scope and devastation of the current Israeli offensive has greatly strained their relationship.
In recent months, Cairo has publicly drawn two red lines regarding the advance of Israel's military operation.
The first of them is a mass expulsion of Gazans to the Sinai.
Egypt categorically rejects it because it does not want to be complicit in an ethnic cleansing of the Strip and because this would undermine the Palestinian right to create a State that includes Gaza and could turn the Sinai into a base of operations for the armed factions of the Palestinian resistance. .
The occupation of the narrow corridor that runs along the border, whose status is regulated by the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, is another red line.
Cairo has avoided clarifying the measures it contemplates if Israel crosses any of these lines, but Egyptian sources have leaked to local and international media that one of the actions contemplated if Israel crosses any of its red lines is the withdrawal of its ambassador in Tel Aviv, a step that Cairo already took in 1982, after the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, and in 2000, for its repression of the first Intifada.
American and Israeli officials have also privately leaked to regional media that Cairo has conveyed its intention to directly break relations with Israel, deploy greater military forces to the border or suspend the peace treaty if Israel pushes the Gazans towards the Sinai, in actions that are unprecedented.
Despite this, senior officials from both countries have maintained lines of communication to address bilateral issues and Egypt is closely involved in mediation with Hamas.
In this sense, an Egyptian delegation traveled to Tel Aviv last week to address the situation in Rafah and try to maintain some cooperation, according to the American newspaper
The Wall Street Journal
.
And this Tuesday a new round of high-level negotiations on a possible ceasefire is scheduled in Cairo, according to Israeli media.
“The current security alert [of Egypt] aims to ensure security in accordance with the terms of the peace treaty and prevent the displacement of Palestinians,” says Ragheb, who is also the director of the Arab Institution for Strategic and Development Studies, based in Cairo.
“The issue would be different if Israel launched an offensive operation on Rafah without evacuating civilians or coordinating with the Egyptian side,” he slips, since this “would be considered a violation of the peace treaty and would give Egypt the right to break that agreement.” and deploy military forces.”
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