CAIRO: Egypt is constructing a walled camp in the Sinai Peninsula to receive displaced Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip, a US media report and an Egyptian human rights monitor said on Friday.

But Israel said it had no plans to move civilians there, as it prepares an offensive in Rafah, in Gaza’s far south.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said an eight-square-mile “walled enclosure” was under construction on the Egyptian side of the border.

The compound was part of “contingency plans” if ceasefire talks in Cairo failed and could accommodate more than 100,000 people, it added.

The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an Egyptian NGO, released a report this week that it said showed construction of the compound to receive Palestinian refugees “in the case of a mass exodus”.

Journalists reviewed satellite pictures taken on Thursday of the area in northern Sinai, showing machinery building a wall along the Egypt-Gaza border. The area is highly secure and closed to journalists.

A comparison of satellite photos taken on Feb 10 and Feb 15 shows land having been graded.

North Sinai governor Mohamed Shousha has denied Egypt is preparing “an isolated area in Sinai” to receive refugees.

The construction work was to assess houses destroyed `during upheaval in recent years to “properly compensate” owners, he said.

The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights said two contractors told it construction firms had been tasked with building the gated area, “surrounded by seven-metre-high walls”.

The site lies on the “rubble” of Egyptian homes “demolished” during the state’s war against Islamists in northern Sinai over the past decade, it said.

Sources in Sinai said the area was being prepared in case of a breach of the Gaza border, which Egypt has fortified with additional walls and buffer zones since Israel’s war with Hamas began.

“The area will be readied with tents” and humanitarian assistance would be delivered inside, said one source.

Warning

Egypt, which controls the Rafah border crossing from Gaza, has repeatedly warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said if that happened it could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi expressed understanding for Egypt’s opposition to any mass exodus.

“It would be catastrophic for Palestinians… to be displaced again,” Grandi told the BBC on Friday.
Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2024