Egypt has responded with a wall of silence to Israel’s takeover of a buffer zone in southern Gaza, in apparent defiance of a decades-old peace deal, as Cairo sought to contain the latent anger of public opinion while avoiding an escalation of tensions with Israel.
Israel said Wednesday that its forces had taken “operational” control of the Philadelphia Corridor – the Israeli military’s code name for the 14km-long strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border. . Under the terms of the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, each side is allowed to deploy only a small number of soldiers or border guards in a demilitarized zone that stretches along the entire Israeli-Israeli border. Egyptian and encompasses the corridor.
Although Egyptian officials have been sounding the alarm for months about the risks of Israeli forces taking control of the corridor, Cairo has issued no official comment.
During a visit to Beijing, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi called for increased humanitarian aid to Gaza and reiterated his country’s long-standing opposition to “any attempt to force Palestinians to flee their land by force “.
Mohamed Abdel Salem, a former major general whose 40-year career included running an Israeli studies center in the Egyptian army, said Israel’s actions had brought the two countries closer to a “war which we do not need and which Egypt led.” well done to avoid.”
“It’s not in our interest,” he said. “We are already suffering economically; there is no need to open a new front. We are not looking for a major war or more conflict. The best thing for us now would be to end this violence and resume negotiations.”
The Israeli takeover of the border came days after a rare exchange of fire between Egyptian and Israeli troops at the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza that resulted in the deaths of two young Egyptian conscripts. These deaths angered crowds in rural villages where they were buried without the presence of any member of the army.
“We want justice,” said a relative of Abdullah Ramadan, 22, buried in his hometown of Fayoum, south of Cairo. “When will his blood be avenged? When will we have justice for him? she asked, requesting anonymity for fear of publicly criticizing the government.
Ramadan’s friend and neighbor, Mohamed Elmasry, 24, said their village was “plunged into grief” because the young soldier was buried without military honors.
“At the funeral, I only saw religious scholars and people who came from Cairo to stand with the family,” he said. “All of Egypt is angry over Abdullah’s death, while it cries and is angry over the massacres in Gaza. »
The gap between public anger over issues such as relations with Israel and border security – long seen as key issues of national pride – and the limited response from the highest echelons of the Egyptian regime has fueled the feeling that the regime wants to divert attention from Israeli human rights violations. Egypt’s red lines.
HA Hellyer, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said: “This is the worst period in Israeli-Egyptian relations in a very long time. But I think that, in a way, Cairo and other capitals need to recognize that the Israeli political elite is growing in a way that makes multiple such crises likely in the future.”
Egypt, he said, chose to express its anger through actions such as joining South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice earlier this month.
“I don’t think there is a way in Cairo to change Israeli behavior; it’s in Washington,” Hellyer said. “But Washington refuses to use it.”
Mohannad Sabry, an expert on the Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptian landmass bordering Israel, said Israel’s takeover of the Philadelphia corridor and Rafah crossing had humiliated the Egyptian government.
“Of course, these incidents are embarrassing, but the concerns on the Egyptian side are not about the Israelis, but about their ability to govern Egypt and how to control public anger inside the country,” he said. he declared..
Some Egyptian opposition figures have expressed their discontent, notably Hamdeen Sabahi, who in early May called for the dissolution of the Camp David Accords that led to the peace treaty with Egypt and the withdrawal of the Israeli ambassador. But any attempt at public protest has been met with fierce repression, including the frequent use of terrorism charges against demonstrators.
The Cairo-based organization, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, has documented at least 120 arrests since October linked to the Gaza protests.
“This feeling of anger is enormous. We saw it at the soldiers’ funerals,” said Mohammed Lotfy, ECRF executive director. “But there is a gap between the feeling of the street and that of the formal side; the regime does not want an escalation.”
Egyptian authorities, he added, fear that allowing demonstrations on this issue could quickly escalate into demonstrations against the rising cost of living, high inflation and spiraling poverty.
“The government fears that today people are protesting for Gaza, tomorrow they are protesting against the economy. The Egyptian government has a lot to fear from public anger right now, and it doesn’t want people to get used to protesting,” he said.
A journalist from Cairo contributed to this report
News Source : www.theguardian.com
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