Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
An Israeli Ministry, in a 'Concept Paper,' Proposes Transferring Gaza Civilians to Egypt's Sinai
By admin
Published 2 years ago on
October 30, 2023

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

JERUSALEM — An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians and worsening tensions with Cairo. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a “concept paper.” But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt’s problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said of the report. “What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again.”

A mass displacement, Rudeineh said, would be “tantamount to declaring a new war.”

So far more than 8,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, have been killed since Israel went to war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack.

Aimed at Preserving Security for Israel

The document is dated Oct. 13, six days after Hamas militants killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel and took over 240 hostage in an attack that provoked a devastating Israeli war in Gaza. It was first published by Sicha Mekomit, a local news site.

In its report, the Intelligence Ministry — a junior ministry that conducts research but does not set policy — offered three alternatives “to effect a significant change in the civilian reality in the Gaza Strip in light of the Hamas crimes that led to the Sword of Iron war.”

The document’s authors deem this alternative to be the most desirable for Israel’s security.

The document proposes moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent cities in northern Sinai, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor. A security zone would be established inside Israel to block the displaced Palestinians from entering. The report did not say what would become of Gaza once its population is cleared out.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. But Egypt has made clear throughout this latest war that it does not want to take in a wave of Palestinian refugees.

Egypt has long feared that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into its territory, as happened during the war surrounding Israel’s independence. Egypt ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when Israel captured the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The vast majority of Gaza’s population are the descendants of Palestinian refugees uprooted from what is now Israel.

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, has said a mass influx of refugees from Gaza would eliminate the Palestinian nationalist cause. It would also risk bringing militants into Sinai, where they might launch attacks on Israel, he said. That would endanger the countries’ 1979 peace treaty. He proposed that Israel instead house Palestinians in its Negev Desert, which neighbors the Gaza Strip, until it ends its military operations.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said the paper threatened to damage relations with a key partner.

“If this paper is true, this is a grave mistake. It might cause a strategic rift between Israel and Egypt,” said Guzansky, who said he has consulted for the ministry in the past. “I see it either as ignorance or someone who wants to negatively affect Israel-Egypt relations, which are very important at this stage.”

Egypt is a valuable partner that cooperates behind the scenes with Israel, he said. If it is seen as overtly assisting an Israeli plan like this, especially involving the Palestinians, it could be “devastating to its stability.”

Questions of Legitimacy — and Other Possible Destinations

Egypt would not necessarily be the Palestinian refugees’ last stop. The document speaks about Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates supporting the plan either financially, or by taking in uprooted residents of Gaza as refugees and in the long term as citizens. Canada’s “lenient” immigration practices also make it a potential resettlement target, the document adds.

At first glance, this proposal “is liable to be complicated in terms of international legitimacy,” the document acknowledges. “In our assessment, fighting after the population is evacuated would lead to fewer civilian casualties compared to what could be expected if the population were to remain.”

An Israeli official familiar with the document said it isn’t binding and that there was no substantive discussion of it with security officials. Netanyahu’s office called it a “concept paper, the likes of which are prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies.”

“The issue of the ‘day after’ has not been discussed in any official forum in Israel, which is focused at this time on destroying the governing and military capabilities of Hamas,” the prime minister’s office said.

The document dismisses the two other options: reinstating the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority as the sovereign in Gaza, or supporting a local regime. Among other reasons, it rejects them as unable to deter attacks on Israel.

The reinstatement of the Palestinian Authority, which was ejected from Gaza after a weeklong 2007 war that put Hamas in power, would be “an unprecedented victory of the Palestinian national movement, a victory that will claim the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers, and does not safeguard Israel’s security,” the document says.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Judge Rejects Claim That Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Was Treated Differently Because of His Race

DON'T MISS

Rapper Tory Lanez Attacked at a California Prison as He Serves Time for Megan Thee Stallion Shooting

DON'T MISS

Grapevine Fire Forces Full Closure of Southbound I-5

DON'T MISS

Fresno’s New Economic Development Leader Has Boomtown Expertise

DON'T MISS

KMJ’s Ray Appleton Is Off the Air as He Deals With ‘Rare Condition’

DON'T MISS

Bakersfield Man Pleads Guilty to Aiming Laser at Sheriff’s Helicopter

DON'T MISS

Erika Sandoval Faces Life Sentence for Murder of Former Exeter Police Officer

DON'T MISS

US Car Prices Higher in April After Tariffs Hit

DON'T MISS

Fresno County School Boards Need Ethics Training: Grand Jury

DON'T MISS

Pentagon Halting Gender-Affirming Healthcare for Transgender Troops, Memo Says

UP NEXT

Trump Plans to Accept Luxury 747 From Qatar to Use as Air Force One

UP NEXT

What the World Needs From Pope Leo

UP NEXT

Pope Leo XIV Urges Release of Imprisoned Journalists, Affirms Gift of Free Speech and Press

UP NEXT

Iran Warns Europeans That Reimposing Sanctions Could Have Irreversible Consequences

UP NEXT

Hamas Set to Free US-Israeli Hostage, Israel Says No Ceasefire

UP NEXT

Trump’s Trip to Saudi Arabia Raises the Prospect of US Nuclear Cooperation With the Kingdom

UP NEXT

Iran to Send Russia Launchers for Short-Range Missiles, Sources Say

UP NEXT

Residents Stockpile Food, Rush to Bunkers as Conflict Rattles India and Pakistan

UP NEXT

Israel Won’t Be Involved in New Gaza Aid Plan, Only in Security, US Envoy Says

UP NEXT

Iran Agrees to Fourth Round of Indirect Nuclear Talks With US on Sunday

Fresno’s New Economic Development Leader Has Boomtown Expertise

47 minutes ago

KMJ’s Ray Appleton Is Off the Air as He Deals With ‘Rare Condition’

1 hour ago

Bakersfield Man Pleads Guilty to Aiming Laser at Sheriff’s Helicopter

2 hours ago

Erika Sandoval Faces Life Sentence for Murder of Former Exeter Police Officer

2 hours ago

US Car Prices Higher in April After Tariffs Hit

2 hours ago

Fresno County School Boards Need Ethics Training: Grand Jury

2 hours ago

Pentagon Halting Gender-Affirming Healthcare for Transgender Troops, Memo Says

2 hours ago

Fresno County Traffic Stop Leads to $250K Cocaine Bust

3 hours ago

Top Justice Department Official Is Now Also Acting Librarian of Congress

4 hours ago

Trump Tower Damascus? Syria Seeks to Charm US President for Sanctions Relief

4 hours ago

Judge Rejects Claim That Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Was Treated Differently Because of His Race

NEW YORK — Sean “Diddy” Combs was not treated differently because of his race by prosecutors who brought racketeering and sex trafficking ch...

5 minutes ago

Sean 'Diddy' Combs, far left, looks on from the defense table with his attorneys, as a prospective juror, far right, answers questions posed by Judge Arun Subramanian, center, at Manhattan federal court, Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
5 minutes ago

Judge Rejects Claim That Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Was Treated Differently Because of His Race

Singer Tory Lanez returns to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center for his trial, Dec. 13, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP File)
9 minutes ago

Rapper Tory Lanez Attacked at a California Prison as He Serves Time for Megan Thee Stallion Shooting

A fire has shut down all southbound lanes of I-5 at Grapevine Road on Monday, May 12, 2025, prompting major traffic delays as crews work to extinguish the flames. (CHP)
18 minutes ago

Grapevine Fire Forces Full Closure of Southbound I-5

47 minutes ago

Fresno’s New Economic Development Leader Has Boomtown Expertise

1 hour ago

KMJ’s Ray Appleton Is Off the Air as He Deals With ‘Rare Condition’

photo of a green laser beam
2 hours ago

Bakersfield Man Pleads Guilty to Aiming Laser at Sheriff’s Helicopter

A Tulare County jury has convicted on Thursday, May 8. 2025, Erika Sandoval of first-degree murder in the 2015 shooting death of her ex-husband, former Exeter police officer Daniel Green. (Tulare County DA)
2 hours ago

Erika Sandoval Faces Life Sentence for Murder of Former Exeter Police Officer

2025 Buick Encore GX SUV's sit on the lot of a Buick GMC dealership in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo
2 hours ago

US Car Prices Higher in April After Tariffs Hit

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend