Egypt closed the single crossings into Egypt, yeah. Although there are other crossings into Israel. Egypt also wants to put humanitarian aid into Gaza but Israel refuses to allow it, saying they will bomb any such shipments of aid.
Having said that, I think the reason the Egyptians are refusing refugees is more complicated than just the shelling from Israel. That was a good justification, but consider Egypt’s position.
a) they are going through an economic crisis and a potential 1+ million refugees will not be easy to accommodate
b) there is an active militancy in sinai right now, presumably where a majority of the refugees would end up, and the radicalization experienced by many of these will certainly feed into the current problem
c) let’s say they accept a large chunk of gazans. where’s the guarantee that they are going back? This operation by Israel could take months and totally destroy the cities in Gaza. Even if the Palestinians wanted to go back at the end of this, who is to say the Israelis would let them? The Israelis would have gotten rid of a large number of problematic people. Less Palestinians = less problems. They would have very little incentive, besides international pressure, to accept these people back
How will history and the rest of the Arab world remember the Egyptians? As a provider of aid in a trying time? Or as a facilitator of ethnic cleansing?
I think it was Egypt who indefinitely closed the border some days ago. But to be fair, the reason for that was that the IDF was shelling the Rafah border after telling Palestineans to flee through that corridor.
Egypt closed the single crossings into Egypt, yeah. Although there are other crossings into Israel. Egypt also wants to put humanitarian aid into Gaza but Israel refuses to allow it, saying they will bomb any such shipments of aid.
Having said that, I think the reason the Egyptians are refusing refugees is more complicated than just the shelling from Israel. That was a good justification, but consider Egypt’s position.
a) they are going through an economic crisis and a potential 1+ million refugees will not be easy to accommodate
b) there is an active militancy in sinai right now, presumably where a majority of the refugees would end up, and the radicalization experienced by many of these will certainly feed into the current problem
c) let’s say they accept a large chunk of gazans. where’s the guarantee that they are going back? This operation by Israel could take months and totally destroy the cities in Gaza. Even if the Palestinians wanted to go back at the end of this, who is to say the Israelis would let them? The Israelis would have gotten rid of a large number of problematic people. Less Palestinians = less problems. They would have very little incentive, besides international pressure, to accept these people back
How will history and the rest of the Arab world remember the Egyptians? As a provider of aid in a trying time? Or as a facilitator of ethnic cleansing?