- Rafah crossing closed following Israeli bombardments
- Crossing is main gateway to outside world for Gazans
- Egypt concerned Israeli assault will drive displacement
- Israel revised recommendation for people to head south
Egypt is moving to avert a mass exodus from the Gaza Strip into its Sinai Peninsula, as Israeli bombardment halted crossings at the main exit point from the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday, Gaza officials and Egyptian security sources said.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has caused alarm in Egypt, which has urged Israel to provide safe passage for civilians from the enclave rather than encouraging them to flee southwest towards Sinai, two Egyptian security sources said.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Tuesday that the escalation in Gaza was “highly dangerous” and that Egypt was pursuing a negotiated solution to the violence with regional and international partners.
Egypt would not allow the issue to be settled at the expense of others, Sisi said in comments reported by state news agency MENA, an apparent reference to the risk that Palestinians could be pushed into Sinai.
The Rafah border crossing remained shut on Wednesday morning, after Egyptian military planes conducted flights nearby overnight, security sources said. The military has also taken up new positions close to the border, running patrols to monitor the area, said Ahmed Salem of the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
Egypt is really the elephant in the room for the Gaza Strip. It’s an open-air prison, sure, but Egypt holds one of the jail cell doors shut on their side.
Egypt is a fragile military dictatorship. they know they are at the mercy of the west, if they don’t comply with the US and Israeli plans for the region. a military or civil war will be on its way to them in less than a month. in fact all the Arab regimes are the same. their survival is tied to US approval, that’s why they started normalizing relations with Israel despite public opinion being in majority against that.