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JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli ministry has drafted a war proposal to move the Gaza Strip’s 2. 3 million citizens to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, drawing condemnation from Palestinians and escalating tensions with Cairo.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace downplayed the intelligence ministry’s report as a hypothetical exercise, a “concept paper. “But their findings reinforced long-held Egyptian fears that Israel needs to turn Gaza into an Egyptian problem and revived memories among Palestinians of their greatest trauma. — the uprooting of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes by the fighting that surrounded the Israeli border. Founded in 1948.
“We oppose moving anywhere, in any form, and we consider this to be a red line that we will not allow to be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said of the report. “I will not allow 1948 to happen again. “
A displacement, Abu Rudeineh said, “would be tantamount to signaling a new war. “
So far, more than 8,000 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, have been killed since Israel went to war with Hamas following its Oct. 7 attack.
GOAL OF PRESERVING ISRAEL’S SECURITY
The document is dated Oct. 13, six days after Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel and took more than 240 hostages in an attack that sparked a devastating Israeli war in Gaza. It was first published through Sicha Mekomit, a local news outlet. website.
In its report, the Intelligence Ministry – a subordinate ministry that conducts investigations but does not set policy – proposes three “significant updates on the civilian truth in the Gaza Strip in light of Hamas’ crimes that led to the Iron War. “Sword. ” war. “
The authors of the document consider this option to be the most desirable for Israel’s security.
The document proposes moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent towns in northern Sinai, and then building permanent cities and an indefinite humanitarian corridor. An internal Israeli zone would be established to prevent the entry of displaced Palestinians. The report does not say what would happen to Gaza once its population is expelled.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. But Egypt has made it clear in this latest war that it does not need to take in a wave of Palestinian refugees.
Egypt has long feared that Israel would need to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians from its territory, as happened in Israel’s war of independence. Egypt ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when Israel captured the territory, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The vast majority of Gaza’s population is made up of descendants of Palestinian refugees uprooted from what is now Israel.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said a large influx of refugees from Gaza would favor the Palestinian nationalist cause. It would also threaten to take militants to Sinai, where they could launch attacks opposed to Israel, he said. This would jeopardize the 1979 peace treaty. between the two countries. He proposed that Israel instead space out Palestinians in its Negev desert, which borders the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.
Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies, said the newspaper threatened to harm a key partner.
“If this article is true, it is a grave mistake. This may simply cause a strategic divide between Israel and Egypt,” said Guzansky, who said he had been a consultant to the ministry in the past. “I see him as ignorant or as someone who needs to damage Israeli-Egyptian relations, which are very vital right now. »
Egypt is a valuable partner cooperating with Israel on the scene, he said. If you are seen blatantly supporting an Israeli plan like this, which involves the Palestinians in particular, it may simply be “devastating to your stability. “
QUESTIONS OF LEGITIMACY AND OTHER POSSIBLE DESTINATIONS
Egypt will not necessarily be the last obstacle for Palestinian refugees. The document speaks of the participation of Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the plan, either financially or by hosting uprooted citizens of Gaza as refugees and, in the long term, as citizens. Canada’s “lenient” immigration practices also make it a potential target for resettlement, the document adds.
At first glance, this proposal “is likely to be confusing in terms of external legitimacy,” the document acknowledges. “According to our assessment, the fighting following the evacuation of the population would result in fewer civilian casualties than expected if the population stayed. “
An Israeli official familiar with the document said it was non-binding and there had been no in-depth discussion about it with security officials. Netanyahu’s office called it “a concept paper, as it is being prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies. “
“The ‘tomorrow’ factor has been addressed in every official forum in Israel, which lately focuses on the destruction of Hamas’ governmental and military capabilities,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The document rejects the two options: restore the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority as sovereign in Gaza, or support a local regime. Among other reasons, it rejects them as incapable of deterring attacks on Israel.
The recovery of the Palestinian Authority, driven out of Gaza after a week-long war in 2007 that brought Hamas to power, would be “an unprecedented victory for the Palestinian national movement, a victory that would claim the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers. ” and does not guarantee Israel’s security,” the document said.
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