The main reason Israel’s nine-week heavy bombardment of Gaza has not driven hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt is that country’s heavily fortified border and Cairo’s steely determination to keep it closed.
But the pressure is increasing. Israel has relentlessly pushed Gaza’s 2.2 million residents south as its forces seek to destroy Hamas’ military wing and its infrastructure, and about 85 percent of the population has been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people now live in squalid and cramped conditions in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost region, right along the border with Egypt.
The bleak conditions have increased fears that the border with Egypt could be breached, allowing large numbers of Palestinian refugees to enter Egypt, potentially destabilizing an Arab ally of the United States.
Israeli officials have said they have no intention of pushing Gazans into Egypt, and the Egyptian government has long resisted letting Gazans seek refuge in the Sinai Peninsula, fearing that Israel will never allow them to return to home and that Hamas and other militant groups, which are no friends of the government in Cairo, could launch operations there.
Satellite images released this week put the number of people near the border in stark relief, showing large numbers of makeshift shelters in the Tel al-Sultan area of the Rafah region. Comparisons with photos of the same area taken last month show that Gaza’s density of displaced people has skyrocketed since Israel began issuing evacuation orders this month for parts of Khan Younis, a larger town six miles to the north .
The images match reports from aid officials, who have warned that southern Gaza is not equipped to provide even basic services to the hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have ended up there.
Many people have only crude, makeshift shelters to protect them from the elements as winter sets in, and every day is a struggle to get adequate food and clean water. Sanitary facilities are poor. Although Rafah is one of the few Gaza cities to receive aid shipments in recent weeks, hunger and communicable diseases are still spreading rapidly, aid groups and United Nations officials say.
Israel launched the bombing and ground invasion after Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years, carried out a surprise assault on cities in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Since then, at least 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in other military operations in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.
At the start of the war, Israel declared the entire northern half of Gaza an evacuation zone, sending people flocking south to where they thought they would be safe. Then Israel also ordered the evacuation of parts of the south, forcing many people who had already fled the north to move again.
Before the war, Rafah had a few hundred thousand people and its population has soared in recent weeks. People fleeing the air campaign in the north arrived early in the war, although Israel continued to bomb targets including in Rafah. Tens of thousands more have arrived this month, aid groups say, clustering in the areas of Tel al-Sultan and al-Mawasi, further west on the Mediterranean coast.
The long history of Palestinians displaced during their 75-year conflict with Israel has left their leaders and their Arab neighbors worried that an exodus of Gazans to Egypt could become permanent.
To protect itself from such a scenario and to quell the influx of Hamas and other Gaza militants, Egypt has spent years fortifying its seven-and-a-half-mile border with Gaza.
Over the past decade, Egyptian forces have flooded and destroyed a network of smuggling tunnels under the border and strengthened the barrier that runs along it. In some places, that barrier now consists of a towering metal wall with a fence on top to prevent people from climbing over it, as well as underground barriers to prevent the digging of new tunnels.
Between 2013 and 2015, Egypt also evicted thousands of people from their homes and destroyed more than 3,000 structures along its side of the border to create a buffer zone, according to the data. a report by Human Rights Watch. According to local residents, since the ongoing war began, the Egyptian army has added additional fortifications, erecting sand barriers and placing tanks and other military vehicles near the border.
At the same time, on the Gaza side, Hamas, whose militants are busy fighting Israel, has largely abandoned border security.
So far, Egypt’s fortifications appear to be strong enough to prevent Gazans from crossing the border. But security at the crossing is poor and a large, angry crowd may be able to get through, according to people who have crossed recently. Another risk is that new holes will open in the barrier, either from errant Israeli attacks or from militants or Gaza residents seeking a way out with explosives.
This is not unprecedented. In 2008, Hamas blew holes in the barrier and tens of thousands of Gazans rushed in, using their visit to stock up on everything from cigarettes to satellite dishes before returning to the besieged territory.
Lauren Leatherby contributed to the reporting.
