Beniamin Netanyahu tried to convince European leaders to pressure Egypt to accept refugees from the Gaza Strip into its territory, according to a source close to the discussions that took place last week and cited by the Financial Times. The information published on Monday by the British newspaper coincided with the leak in Israeli media of a document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence that exposes a plan to expel the 2.3 million Gazans to the Egyptian province of Sinai, with the aim of preserve the security of the country, according to its authors.
The Israeli president's office wanted to downplay the importance of the proposal, which he described as a "conceptual document", but could not avoid the anger of the Palestinian authorities.
Returning to European offices, Netanyahu's proposal to pressure Egypt to open the Rafah crossing, the only one in the strip that Israel does not control, to the Gazans was raised by countries such as the Czech Republic and Austria in private discussions with EU leaders, who met at the summit last Thursday.
However, key European countries, notably France, Germany and the United Kingdom, dismissed the proposal as unrealistic: Cairo has loudly expressed concern that Tel Aviv may try to use the current hostilities to transfer its problems with the Palestinians to Egypt.
Egypt's President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi has said that a "forced removal" of Palestinians from their lands would eliminate the Palestinian nationalist cause. He also believes that the presence of Palestinian refugees could increase the presence of terrorist fighters in the troubled Sinai, where they could launch attacks against Israel. That would jeopardize the 1979 peace treaty between both countries. Instead, he proposed that Israel house the Palestinians in its Negev desert (east of the strip) until it ends its military operations.
What Egypt is not opposed to is allowing the passage of humanitarian aid to the strip, and that the Israeli bombings are making difficult. Indeed, the Egyptian role in the crisis was the subject of discussion during the summit of the Twenty-Seven, which finally agreed that it should stick to its role as a provider of humanitarian aid. In their statement, the EU leaders called for promoting “all types of measures, including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs” to alleviate the “worrying” situation in Gaza.
More than a million Gazans have been forcibly displaced within the strip, most from the north to the south, since Israel began bombing the coastal enclave three weeks ago in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, which killed more than 1,400 people and left more than 240 hostages.
The Israeli retaliation based on incessant bombings on terrorists and civilians has killed more than 8,300 people, while humanitarian organizations working there, including the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), warn that living conditions They are catastrophic due to the Israeli blockade, which prevents access to electricity, water, fuel, food and medicine.
More than half of Gaza's Palestinians are refugees. The vast majority of Gazans descend from the Palestinians expelled from their territories during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 in what is known as the nakba (catastrophe, in Arabic). The Israeli Intelligence Ministry's plan revealed by the Sicha Mekomit media on Monday has made Palestinians relive the memory of their greatest trauma.
"We are against the transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed," the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Rudeineh, warned of the report. "What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again," he added. For the spokesperson, a massive displacement would be equivalent to "declaring a new war."
The document in question is dated October 13, six days after the Hamas attack on Israeli territory, and consists of three proposals to "change the reality of Gaza," although its commitment to Israel's security is the transfer of its civilian population to Egypt. Specifically, it would be housed in tents in northern Sinai, then permanent cities and an indefinite humanitarian corridor would be built. A security zone would also be established on the border between Egypt and Israel to block the entry of displaced Palestinians.
To achieve the project, the authors assume the collaboration of Arab countries (Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) with financing or hosting refugees. “Messages to Gazans should revolve around the loss of land: ‘Allah made sure you lost this land because of Hamas leadership; there is no choice but to move you to another place with the help of your Muslim brothers,'" the document proposes, according to Sicha Mekomit.
"If this document is true, this is a serious mistake. It could cause a strategic rupture between Israel and Egypt," Yoel Guzansky, senior researcher at the Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies, who is also a researcher, told the Associated Press. former advisor to the Ministry of Intelligence. For the moment, Egypt has not commented on the matter.
An Israeli official familiar with the document assured the same US agency that the proposal was not binding and that there was no substantial discussion about it. Netanyahu's office called it a "conceptual document, like the one being prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies." And he told Haaretz that the plan was part of "initial thoughts" on the issue, but that Israeli authorities are now focused on the war effort.
