Egypt Rejects Israeli Plan to Settle Palestinians in Sinai

 Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks during a joint press conference with the Turkish foreign minister in Cairo on October 14, 2023. (AFP)
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks during a joint press conference with the Turkish foreign minister in Cairo on October 14, 2023. (AFP)
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Egypt Rejects Israeli Plan to Settle Palestinians in Sinai

 Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks during a joint press conference with the Turkish foreign minister in Cairo on October 14, 2023. (AFP)
Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry speaks during a joint press conference with the Turkish foreign minister in Cairo on October 14, 2023. (AFP)

Egypt reiterated its rejection of an Israeli plan that calls for the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians in Gaza and their resettlement in Sinai.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry described the leaked Israeli intelligence ministry document as "ludicrous."

In the first official Egyptian comments on the document, he said: "I don’t think we would — anyone would — raise such a ludicrous proposition."

He made his remarks in an interview to CNN on Thursday.

"If that was the case, maybe the United States would also contemplate providing the same access to its southern border that might be expected for us in the Sinai," he added.

"States are sovereign and they are well-defined by their borders, by their populations. And the issue of displacement in itself is a matter that is in contravention, is in violation of international humanitarian law," Shoukry said. "So I think that nobody would undertake an illegal activity."

An Israeli government ministry had drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people to Egypt's Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians and worsening tensions with Cairo.

The document is dated Oct. 13, six days after Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel and took over 240 hostage in an attack that provoked a devastating Israeli war in Gaza. It was first published by Sicha Mekomit, a local news site, and came to light this past week.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a “concept paper.” But its conclusions revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said of the report. “What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again."

A mass displacement, Abu Rudeineh said, would be “tantamount to declaring a new war.”

The document proposes moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent cities in northern Sinai, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor. A security zone would be established inside Israel to block the displaced Palestinians from entering. The report did not say what would become of Gaza once its population is cleared out.



Several Killed in Israeli Airstrike North Gaza Town amid Ceasefire Disputes

Palestinians reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway (File photo)
Palestinians reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway (File photo)
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Several Killed in Israeli Airstrike North Gaza Town amid Ceasefire Disputes

Palestinians reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway (File photo)
Palestinians reported more airstrikes and heavy fighting in northern Gaza, which has been largely isolated by Israeli troops for months and where the World Food Program says a famine is underway (File photo)

At least five Palestinians were killed, including two local journalists, and others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli strike on Gaza's northern Beit Lahiya town, medics told Reuters, as Hamas' leaders hold Gaza ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.

Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, the medics added.

Witnesses and fellow journalists said the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them.

The incident underscores the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.

Responding to some of the incidents reported by Gaza medics, the Israeli military says its forces have intervened to thwart threats by "terrorists" approaching its forces or planting bombs on the ground near where forces operate.

Since a temporary first phase of the ceasefire expired on March 2, Israel has rejected opening the second phase of talks, which would require it to negotiate over a permanent end to the war, the main demand of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The incident coincided with a visit by Hamas' exiled Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, to Cairo for further ceasefire talks aimed at resolving disputes with Israel that could risk a resumption of fighting in the enclave.

On Friday, Hamas said it had agreed to free an American-Israeli dual national if Israel begins the next phase of ceasefire talks towards a permanent end to the war, an offer Israel dismissed as "psychological warfare."

Hamas said it had made the offer to release New Jersey native Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, after receiving a proposal from mediators for negotiations on the second phase of a ceasefire deal.

Israel says it wants to extend the ceasefire's temporary first phase, a proposal backed by US envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase.

The war began when Hamas carried out a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and reduced much of the territory to rubble and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.