Cairo is bringing together Bedouins and tribesmen to improve security against a possible influx of Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks.
The Israeli occupation of Rafah has increased the possibility of an influx of Palestinian refugees into Sinai, Egypt’s greatest fear. The Cairo administration, which has been preparing for Israel’s forced migration of Palestinians into Sinai since the start of the Gaza war on 7 October, accelerated these preparations after Israeli troops seized the Rafah border crossing.
According to Amr Emam of Majalla, the Egyptian authorities have recently united Bedouins and tribes in Egypt’s north-eastern region, which borders both Israel and Gaza. On 1 May, Egypt announced the formation of the Union of Arab Tribes, bringing together for the first time the Sinai tribes and the Bedouins, who have great influence in Sinai and other parts of Egypt.
It was recalled that these tribes have been supporting the Egyptian security forces’ fight against ISIS in the Sinai desert for the past 10 years.
Egypt is strongly opposed to Israel’s occupation of Rafah and has expressed its concerns on several occasions since the start of the war, while the Egyptian army has reinforced its border with Gaza, building a half-concrete, half-metal wall in the region. After 7 October, the Egyptian military presence in North Sinai was significantly increased, with tanks deployed in various parts of the Sinai desert on the road to the Gaza border. Egyptian special forces have also been deployed at various points along the Gaza border.
More than 1 million Palestinians have poured into Rafah after fleeing their homes in central and northern Gaza due to Israeli offensives and being told to go there for their own safety.
“The influx of desperate Palestinian refugees into Sinai will put the small number of Egyptian army units stationed on the Egyptian side of the 12-kilometre border between Sinai and Gaza in an embarrassing situation,” Majalla reported.
He recalled that Egyptian troops did not open fire on Palestinians when Hamas destroyed part of the Gaza-Sinai border wall in January 2008, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to cross into Egypt: “It is unlikely that they would open fire in this war if faced with such a situation. This means that Sinai could become a permanent refugee camp for Palestinians. Hamas could turn the camp into a military base from which to launch attacks against Israel, undermining Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.
The 1979 agreement between Israel and Egypt limits the presence of Israeli troops along the border on the Gaza side of Sinai. Before 2007, when Hamas won elections in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority provided security along the 14-kilometre border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor. Israel now wants to take over the Gaza section of this corridor, despite Egyptian objections.
The article pointed out that the same tribes will form a line of defence in case the Palestinians invade Egyptian territory, and quoted Mostafa Bakri, an Egyptian MP and spokesman for the Arab Tribes Union, as saying, “The union will be ready to defend Sinai by warning against the migration of Gaza residents to Sinai”. However, Bakri did not specify what measures the tribes would take to prevent the Palestinian exodus, but said that “a force of 10,000 people will play an important role in the defence of Sinai”.
