CAIRO (AP) — Israel faces a growing risk of damaging its peace with neighboring Egypt as its military pushes the offensive against Hamas further south in the Gaza Strip. Already, the two sides are in a dispute over a narrow strip of land between Egypt and Gaza.
Israeli leaders say that to complete their destruction of Hamas, they must eventually widen their offensive to Gaza’s southernmost town, Rafah, and take control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a tiny buffer zone on the border with Egypt that is demilitarized under the two countries’ 1979 peace accord.
In a news conference last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas continues to smuggle weapons under the border – a claim Egypt vehemently denies — and that the war cannot end “until we close this breach,” referring to the corridor.
That brought a sharp warning from Egypt that deploying Israeli troops in the zone, known in Egypt as the Salaheddin Corridor, will violate the peace deal.
“Any Israeli move in this direction will lead to a serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations,” Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said Monday.
Egypt fears that an Israeli attack on Rafah will push a massive wave of Palestinians fleeing across the border into its Sinai Peninsula.
More than 1 million Palestinians – nearly half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million — are crowded into Rafah and its surroundings on the border, most driven there after fleeing Israeli bombardment and ground offensives elsewhere in Gaza.
Egypt told the Israelis that before any ground assault on Rafah, Israel must let Palestinians return to northern Gaza.