The Israeli army plans to divide the heavily bombed and blockaded northern Gaza Strip into five areas, allowing only women and men over the age of 60 to return home after the war. Israel has communicated this plan to Egypt, but Cairo has rejected it.
Sources told The National that Egypt strongly opposes Israel’s post-war plans for Gaza, including the creation of a buffer zone in northern Gaza and the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to areas near the border. Cairo’s opposition was conveyed to representatives of Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet security services during talks with Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo on Sunday, according to the sources.
“It was long and tense,” one source said of the meeting, which was attended by Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, who was appointed last week as Egypt’s new intelligence chief.
According to these sources, who shared details from intelligence reports, Israel plans to establish five “security zones” in the northern coastal strip, where infrastructure will be destroyed to the point that communities will be unable to survive.
The Israeli army will only allow displaced women and men over the age of 60 to return to their homes in northern Gaza. Local militias, known to be opposed to Hamas, would oversee the distribution of humanitarian aid. It was also suggested that no reconstruction efforts would be permitted in the area.
“There will be a direct Israeli military administration in northern Gaza, supported by local militias selected from tribes hostile to Hamas,” said another source. “Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is determined to reshape all aspects of life in Gaza through systematic evictions and actions that some describe as genocidal.”
There has been no official statement from either Egypt or Israel about Sunday’s meeting, the first known face-to-face encounter between Israeli and Egyptian intelligence officials in weeks. Several meetings have taken place over nearly a year of unsuccessful negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas since October 2023.
Israeli authorities claim the evacuation orders for northern Gaza residents are intended to separate Hamas fighters from civilians and deny allegations of a systematic plan to forcibly displace civilians from Jibaliya or other northern areas.
Israeli officials say their operations in northern Gaza have killed scores of Hamas militants and targeted Hamas infrastructure.
Hamas, on the other hand, accuses Israel of carrying out “genocide and ethnic cleansing” to drive the population out of northern Gaza.
The issue of Israel’s military presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip along Egypt’s border with Gaza that includes the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, was also raised at Sunday’s meeting. The Egyptians reiterated their demand for Israeli troops to withdraw from the area.
Egypt argues that Israel’s military presence there violates the 1979 peace treaty and subsequent agreements between the two countries. Israel, however, insists that it must remain in the corridor to prevent weapons and equipment from being smuggled into Gaza through tunnels, a claim Egypt has repeatedly denied.
Reports of Israel’s intention to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza came as the Israeli army intensified its operations in the area last Monday. The Indonesian hospital was destroyed by fire, along with buildings where thousands of displaced people had taken refuge.
Israeli forces also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the Jibaliya camp, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, which seems to confirm the sources’ claims about Israel’s intentions in the region.
