Egypt’s Shameful Rejection of Gazan Refugees

There are many counter-intuitive aspects of Israel’s war against Hamas that beg an explanation and for which no explanation by the UN or its member nations is forthcoming.

The most obvious one is the expectation that Israel and Israel alone is responsible for providing food, water, medical supplies and related services to the population in Gaza.

In the history of war, no nation that has been attacked and is fighting a defensive war, existential or not, has been expected to provide succor to the civilians of the political entity that was responsible for the attack.   The allied forces of World War II were never expected to feed the citizens of Germany or Japan while they were engaged in a battle to defeat them.   During the American Civil War, the Union Army was not expected to provide humanitarian aid to the Confederate forces that began the war.

It is only Israel that is expected to provide humanitarian aid, or at the very least make it possible for such contributed aid to reach its target audience in a theater of war where it is fighting for its survival as a nation against a terrorist entity bent on its destruction.

But there is another example that is also obvious but which has not drawn any condemnation of Egypt and the rest of the Arab World.  In most war-ravaged countries, the civilian population has the option to leave and go to a neighboring country not involved in the war.

The most recent example of this is Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine three years ago.  Ukrainian citizens who were not of military age could leave and were warmly welcomed by neighboring countries of refuge such as Poland, Romania, Hungary and even more distant locations such as Germany.   UN figures show that seven million Ukrainians took advantage of the opportunity and fled to safer climes.

However, for Gazans, while Israel understandably was not willing to let enemy civilians into the country, Egypt, which is the other country that shares a border with Gaza, closed the Rafah crossing to Gazan refugees as soon as the war started.   Of course, this is the Middle East, where there are few absolutes, so if one had the funds available, for a high price paid to unscrupulous Egyptian operatives, it was possible for a small number of people to leave.   But even if one had the funds available, if Gazans don’t have a medical or academic reason, they simply couldn’t leave. There are no exit permits for tourism or foreign travel given under Hamas rule for any other reason.

Further, according to a report prepared by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel-Aviv University, it was reported that: “Within the Egyptian public discourse, apprehen­sion exists regarding the potential inundation of the Sinai Peninsula with Palestinian refugees orig­inating from Gaza. President al-Sisi has issued mul­tiple warnings to Israel, notably during the peace conference held in Cairo on October 21, 2023, in his address expressing solidarity with the Palestin­ian people on November 23, 2023, and during his meeting with the King of Jordan on December 27, 2023. Al-Sisi emphasized that any coerced reloca­tion of Gaza residents to the Egyptian Sinai region would be deemed a ‘red line’ that Egypt adamantly refuses to tolerate.”

The report goes on to say: “Sev­eral Egyptian voices have raised concerns regard­ing the potential influx of Palestinian refugees into Sinai may overshadow Egypt’s notable achieve­ments in the development of the region in the eco­nomic and health sectors, as well as the successful efforts in eliminating the terrorist threat posed by ISIS.”

Of course, needless to say Egypt has not been criticized for their anti-humanitarian stance by the UN or any other nations.  Nor has any other Aab country agreed to take Gazan refugees except for some rare medical rescue flights for the most seriously ill patients. Even Israel has not levelled any criticism of Egypt for their position on this issue.

Sure, one could say that even if those doors were open Hamas would not let them out.  However, if this were a possibility, world pressure on Hamas would perhaps have been sufficient to have them ease such restrictions…or not.  But we will never know because nobody complained.  Sadly, the world was too busy finding yet another reason to blame Israel.

Abba Eban once said “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”  Clearly nothing has changed, and the silence of the world in the face of Egypt’s calumny and concomitant support by its Arab brethren in the region is a permanent stain on their humanity.