The flight into Egypt

As I write Israeli forces have yet to go into north Gaza but they inevitably will and hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans are heading south in anticipation of this towards the city of Khan Younis and the (currently closed) Rafah crossing into Egypt. 

The pictures coming out of Gaza are almost biblical, with horses, donkeys and even camels being used to transport refugees, and the few belongings they have managed to salvage, along the Salah al-Din Road towards hoped-for safety in the south of the Strip. When they arrive, however, conditions in this already overcrowded area are appalling, and even there they are not free from Israeli bombardment.

Egypt is currently refusing to open the Rafah Crossing, fearing a potential refugee surge of more than one million Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula. That fear is justified and may be a gross underestimate as it seems clear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's unstated objective is to drive all 2.3 million Gazans out of the Strip permanently and declare the territory part of 'Greater' Israel - an intention he flagged up a few weeks ago at the United Nations which apparently went unremarked.

In a sign that Egypt is making preparations to receive some refugees, the northern Sinai governor, Gen Mohamed Abdel-Fadil Shousha, lifted a state of emergency that had been in place for years in light of security tensions between the army and Islamist groups in the region. Once the Rafah Crossing is opened, as surely it must eventually be due to sheer force of numbers, the impact on Egypt and its faltering economy will be hugely destabilising. In this light Egypt's reluctance is perfectly understandable and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pointed out that Egypt already hosts some 9 million refugees. He also called for Palestinians to remain in the Strip, saying "It’s important for its people to stay steadfast and exist on its land.” Easy for him to say, perhaps.

Looked at on the map, the Sinai Peninsula appears to offer vast areas of empty land for refugee camps or even permanent settlements. But looking at maps in this contested region, and especially drawing lines on them, has been half the problem historically. Islamic State (IS) insurgency still destabilises the region, the indigenous Bedouin nomadic tribes have been protesting for years about government mistreatment and neglect and now Egyptian military forces and intelligence services are seeking to prevent the spread of protests by people in North Sinai governorate in the east displaced by the conflict with IS. Demonstrations by protesters demanding a return to the villages they were moved out of following IS attacks have occurred more than once recently according to reports by Arabic-language Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Not only the political but also the meteorological climate in the Peninsular is extremely hostile. Plans have been under discussion to reclaim the silted-up saline lagoon Lake Bardawil on the Mediterranean north coast of the region in an effort to restore its climate and re-green it. Dutch environmental engineering experts, the Weather Makers, have come up with seemingly realistic proposals for achieving this. However, an influx of potentially the entire Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip could render this impossible at the very moment that addressing the severe water shortage in the region is essential to sustaining the existing population let alone adding two million-plus refugees to the equation.

Two thousand years ago, we're told, the Christian Holy Family (who were Jewish, by the way) were able to cross freely into Egypt to escape persecution and yet, for 2.3 million Palestinian Arabs in the 21st century, that's apparently not an option? This shocking situation has been created by the inability of adherents of the Abrahamic faiths to live together in the region in harmony.

It really is one unholy mess.


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