Israeli scheme to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai is secondary objective: Experts

Since the start of the ongoing war between Israel and the military wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassem Brigades, in the fully besieged Gaza Strip on October 7, Israeli officials have been calling for and promoting the idea of deporting about 2 million Palestinians from the tiny enclave to Egypt’s Sinai.

Israel has unleashed a campaign of constant airstrikes in the Strip and imposed an inhumane blockade on the civilians by depriving them of the basic needs of water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel. The aggression has so far claimed the lives of more than 4,740 people, including more than 1,903 children. Simultaneously, Israel bombed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only operating entrance for civilians, five times to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid to Gazans through the crossing.

In an interview with Sky News, Israel's former ambassador to the United States said that “the people of Gaza should evacuate on the other side of Rafah” and “Egypt has to accept them, like Turkey accepted refugees who were tortured by [Syrian President Bashar] Al-Assad.”

However, both Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II rejected these calls several times. In a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on October 18, President Sisi said, “If there is an idea for deportation, there is the Negev Desert in Israel, where Palestinians can go temporarily until Israel ends its announced mission of eliminating the resistance or the armed groups of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. in the Strip and then return them back if [the Israelis] want so.”

Sisi added that the ongoing war could last for years under the pretext of “eliminating terrorism” and would have repercussions on Egypt, as Sinai may be turned into be a base for launching terrorist attacks against Israel, in which case Egypt would be forced to bear responsibility for these attacks. 

Egypt also hosted the Cairo Summit for Peace, which was attended by leaders and foreign ministers of 30 countries, to affirm its rejection to the idea of Palestinian deportation to Sinai. “I want to state it clearly and unequivocally to the world, and articulate in sincere terms the will of all the Egyptian people, every single Egyptian, that the liquidation of the Palestinian cause without a just solution is beyond the realm of possibility, and in all cases it will never happen at the expense of Egypt, absolutely not,” said Sisi in his speech at the summit on October 21.

Political activist Abdel-Hady Metawe told Jusoor Post that the Israeli scheme of relocating the Palestinians to Egypt has been foiled by the Egyptian government’s total rejection, saying, “[The Israelis] wanted to seize the opportunities […] to implement their old scheme, but Egypt’s firm stance foiled the scenario of the deportation, up to this moment.” 

Metawe said that the idea of relocating Palestinians to Sinai was driven by the issue of demography for the Israelis, who are afraid of the increasing number of Arab Israelis and Palestinians generally. The number of Palestinians rose about 15 million people, as was stated by Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt Diab Al-Louh in a press conference on October 15. Meanwhile, the Israeli population reached about 9.73 million as of March 2023, Globes reported.

He added that, in 2005, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Giora Eiland, introduced a proposal in which the Gaza Strip would expand to include about 750 square kilometers of Sinai, where other Palestinians and Arab Israelis could live. 

However, this proposal was rejected several times, Metawe noted, adding, “In short, the demographic threat is a real problem for Israel, because the number of Palestinians is higher than the number of Israelis. That is why Israel was working on separating the West Bank from the Gaza Strip through several ways, [such as] by weakening the Palestinian Authority and creating tensions between Fatah and Hamas.” 

Also, Israelis had a scheme to increase their illegal settlements and the number of settlers to one million in the West Bank to expand their own state, he continued.

There are dual citizens stuck in the Gaza Strip, including an estimated 500-600 US-Palestinian citizens, Metawe said, adding, “If those people were pure Americans, America would not leave them to stay at the border for this long time and would pressure Israel to stop the war. This also shows how the western communities are treating people based on their race.”

“Israel wanted to send a message that the entry of [humanitarian] aid is a big achievement, and that is why it was procrastinating in this file, as well as to create human pressure on the military factions in Gaza by attacking the civilians and depriving them of their basic needs.”

“One of the important political gains of the October operation is the proof that the Israeli far-right government is useless, and Israel will not succeed in this matter,” he added.

In comments to Jusoot Post, Samir Ghattas, a political analyst for Palestinian affairs, said that although Israel pushes for deporting the Palestinians, this is not the main objective at this time. He clarified that Israel’s main aim is to eliminate Hamas. The deportation is a secondary matter, because Israel’s government primarily needs the demise of Hamas in order to restore its “dignity” in front of its own people.

Hindering the delivery of aid is a way to implement part of Israel’s plan, which is to relocate the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Sinai. However, the main aim also for Israel right now is to set free Israeli captives, whom were taken by the Al-Qassem Brigades and other Palestinian militant groups. 

This is one of the elements of leverage used to force Palestinians to immigrate to Egypt, which is linked with the old scheme of relocating Palestinians to Sinai and expanding Israeli areas in Gaza at the expense of Egypt. 

Violence escalated between the Palestinians and Israelis on October 7, when Palestinian fighters from Hamas launched an unprecedented military operation, called Tufan Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa Flood), against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied settlements near the Gaza Strip. The military operation is an attempt to end Israel’s violations against Palestinians, who have been deprived of their rights to their lands, and to put an end to the Israeli siege against Gazan residents and violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In response, Israel has since launched hundreds of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing 4,473 people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and injuring more than 15,400 others. Meanwhile, the escalation of violence resulted in the killing of 1,400 Israelis and 3,400 others injured.