Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied European leaders to pressure Egypt into allowing Palestinian refugees into its territory from Gaza, Financial Times reported on Monday.
The report, which cited people familiar with the talks, said the discussions happened last week. But key European countries, including Britain, France, and Germany, dismissed the idea as unrealistic due to Egypt’s stated opposition to absorbing Palestinian refugees.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said recently that he opposed “any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian issue by military means or through the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land, which would come at the expense of the countries of the region.”
The Financial Times report came after a document prepared by Israel’s Intelligence Ministry proposing pushing all of Gaza’s approximately 2.3 million residents into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula was leaked and published by Hebrew-language media. The document outlined a plan to create a “sterile” buffer zone in Sinai to keep Palestinians away from the border.
In light of the leak, Cairo reiterated its opposition to the idea. “We, the Egyptians, are ready to sacrifice millions of lives so that nobody approaches a grain of sand [in North Sinai],” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said Tuesday, according to The New Arab.
The Israeli proposal said the US could work to pressure Egypt and other Arab countries in the region to support pushing the Palestinians out of Gaza. In a recent phone call, President Biden has agreed with al-Sisi on the importance of “ensuring that Palestinians in Gaza are not displaced to Egypt or any other nation.” But there are signs the US is preparing for the possibility of an influx of refugees in the region.
In a letter to Congress requesting $105 billion to spend on the Gaza war, Ukraine, Taiwan, and other areas, the White House said some of the funding would be needed for the “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries.”
Source: AntiWar.
