7/5/2024–|Last updated: 5/7/202409:04 PM (Mecca time)
After several months of warnings and Egyptian rejection of any Israeli military operation in the city of Rafah or the Philadelphia axis, the Israeli occupation army announced Tuesday morning its control of the Rafah crossing, which connects Egypt to the Gaza Strip.
The occupation army said in a statement, “The forces of the 401st Brigade achieved operational control over the Rafah crossing from the Gaza side, and separated the crossing from the Salah al-Din axis.”
Thus, the occupation forces have penetrated the Salah al-Din “Philadelphia” axis – for the first time since their withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in mid-August 2005 – which is a 14-kilometre-long border strip that separates the Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and the peace agreement between Egypt stipulates Israel is to have a “buffer zone” along the border between the two parties.
“self-control”
In the first Egyptian reaction, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned, in a statement on Tuesday, the Israeli military operations in Rafah, and the resulting Israeli control over the Palestinian side of the crossing.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry called on Israel to exercise “the utmost restraint, and to avoid a policy of brinkmanship with long-term impact,” which would threaten the fate of the strenuous efforts made to reach a sustainable truce inside the Gaza Strip.
It considered that this dangerous escalation threatens the lives of more than a million Palestinians who depend primarily on this crossing as it is the main lifeline of the Gaza Strip, and the safe outlet for the wounded and sick to exit to receive treatment, and for the entry of humanitarian and relief aid to the Palestinian brothers in Gaza.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also called on all influential international parties to intervene and exert the necessary pressure to defuse the current crisis and allow diplomatic efforts to achieve their desired results.
Hours later, Egyptian media reported that Cairo demanded that Tel Aviv stop its military movements at the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side “immediately.”
Cairo News Channel quoted an unnamed source, but described it as “high-level”, that an Egyptian security delegation warned its counterparts in Israel of the consequences of storming the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side, and requested that this move be stopped immediately.
A call for a truce
On Tuesday evening, Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Zaki demanded the necessity of reaching a truce between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel, and stopping the Israeli war on Gaza.
This came during a meeting between Zaki, the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army, in Cairo, with the Commander of the US Central Command, Centcom, according to a statement by Egyptian Army spokesman Gharib Abdel Hafez.
A statement by the Egyptian military spokesman said that Zaki stressed the importance of coordinating efforts between all active forces in the international community to reach calm and a ceasefire in Gaza, and to intensify aid through the Rafah land crossing to alleviate the extremely difficult humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip.
The statement quoted Corella as praising “the pivotal role played by Egypt in achieving security, stability and balance in the region, especially in Gaza,” stressing his country’s keenness to support strategic partnership relations and continuous coordination between the Egyptian and American armed forces.
Previous warnings
Last January, the head of the official Egyptian Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, said that any Israeli move towards occupying the Salah al-Din axis (Philadelphia axis) in the Gaza Strip would lead to a serious and serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations, and Israel’s persistence in marketing these lies is an attempt to create legitimacy. Because it sought to occupy the Philadelphia Corridor or the Saladin Corridor.
The head of the Egyptian Information Service stressed that his country’s borders will not be mortgaged to a group of extremist Israeli leaders who seek to drag the region into a state of conflict and instability, as he put it.
He continued, “This Egyptian red line (not touching the Philadelphia Corridor) joins the previous one, which Egypt has repeatedly declared, which is the categorical rejection of forcibly or voluntarily displacing our Palestinian brothers to Sinai, which we will not allow Israel to cross.”
On the 10th of last January, Israeli Channel 12 (privately) reported that Cairo rejected a request from Tel Aviv for Israel to secure the Philadelphia border area between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
In September 2005, the “Philadelphia Agreement” was signed between Israel and Egypt, which Israel considers a security annex to the 1979 peace treaty, and says that it is governed by its general principles and provisions. According to this agreement, Israel withdrew from the “Philadelphia” axis and handed it over, along with the Rafah crossing, to the Palestinian Authority.
At the end of 2013, the Egyptian authorities tightened their grip on the border area and built a steel wall, which they said was intended to prevent the infiltration of “militants” and “extremists” into its lands. Later, they dug a cross channel from the sea coast in the north to the Rafah crossing in the south, to establish a border area. A buffer extending for about 5 kilometers with the aim of eliminating the tunnels of the “Philadelphia” axis.