Egypt is building a closed and guarded camp in Sinai to host Palestinians fleeing the war in the Gaza Strip in the event of an Israeli offensive on the Rafah, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and an Egyptian NGO reported. AFP reports, News.ro reports.

The Wall Street Journal reports, citing Egyptian officials and security experts, that a “13 square kilometer closed compound” is being built on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by the four-month war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

The camp is part of “emergency plans” to accommodate refugees after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an imminent military offensive in Rafah, which could house “more than 100,000 people,” the US daily reported.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Cairo has warned against any “forced transfer” of the Palestinian population to Sinai, the Egyptian region bordering Rafah, in the context of which more than 1.4 million people, mostly refugees from the war, have flocked to the city, for which the Egyptian border is closed.

Palestinian leaders, the UN and numerous countries sound the alarm about the catastrophic consequences of such an attack on the population and condemn the creation of a new generation of refugees with no prospect of return.

In a report released this week, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights said Egypt is building an “isolated, closed, high-security zone” for Palestinian refugees “in the event of a mass exodus.”

Egypt denies

The governor of North Sinai, Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shusha, denied any such construction.

But an Egyptian NGO says two local company executives have confirmed to them that they have been awarded contracts to build an enclosed area “with seven-metre walls”.

Satellite images taken on Thursday and seen by AFP show construction equipment building a wall in Egypt’s part of Rafah, a high-security sector where media access is banned due to military operations against jihadists.

According to satellite images taken from February 10 to 15, the land has been leveled.

“Israel has no intention of evacuating peaceful Palestinians to Egypt. We respect and value our peace agreement with Egypt (a country), which is a cornerstone of stability in the region as well as an important partner,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday.

After the Camp David Accords, Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979, the first such agreement between an Arab country and a Jewish state.

But, according to some press reports, Cairo has threatened to suspend this Agreement if Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are expelled by Israel to Sinai.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to a tally compiled by AFP based on official Israeli figures.

In response, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed 28,775 people, most of them civilians, according to final figures released Friday by Hamas’ health ministry.