Why Egypt can’t and won’t accept millions of Palestinian refugees from Gaza

Open a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate a potential exodus of millions of Palestinian refugees to Egypt through the Rafah pass, the only exit from the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israelis a proposal that the Cairo Government neither can nor want to accept because of the consequences it would have for their political and economic situation, as well as for ethical considerations.

Egypt has denounced in categorical terms the possibility of letting in Palestinians expelled from their homes due to Israeli pressure, despite the “intransigence” of the State of Israel and the support of USA and the United Kingdom to this possibility.

Along these lines, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al Sisi, remarked yesterday that the Palestinians “They must remain in their land”, a position that the Jordanian King, Abdullah II, reiterated today before the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to avoid destabilizing the region.

Egypt showed its willingness to receive wounded while pressing to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid to the enclave, although Israel rejects this proposal and reiterates that it will only allow people to leave the territory.

These are the main reasons for Egypt to refuse to resettle Palestinians.

Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced expulsion of ethnic, racial or religious groups from a given area.

This is what Israel does to the Palestinians, according to what the inhabitants of the occupied territories themselves denounce, NGO and international organizations.

Open the way for the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza under Israeli bombardment to enter Egypt and they settle would be to enable this option, which is preferred by Israel and USA

“It is apparent that Israel wants to control the Rafah crossing. And they’re not going to let anyone who leaves back in. That is the history of the Palestinians, a succession of displacements. Already 70% of Gazans come from territory now under Israeli sovereignty“, Sean Lee, professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, an expert on minorities and migrations in the region, told EFE.

In that sense, he recalled that since Israel “There have always been explicit threats and active plans to ‘transfer’ the Palestinians, either to the West Bank, to Jordan, or to Egypt.”.

“Any large-scale movement that occurs in this case, everyone sees as another step towards expulsion”he added.

This is consistent with the previous experiences of the millions of Palestinians who were expelled from their territory and never able to return.

Money

Egypt It does not have the money to face a wave of refugees and settle them in the Sinai, a desert and isolated territory with very few development options.

The Egyptian economic situation is very precarious, with skyrocketing inflation, a constant loss in the value of its currency and an external debt that continues to grow.

And an influx of refugees, which would add to the tens of thousands that the country already hosts due to other conflicts (Sudan, South Sudan) would cause a great imbalance.

Egypt It is the second country in the world with the most debt to the International Monetary Fund and is considered the one most at risk of default after Ukraine.

This economic weakness can be considered as a possibility to encourage Egypt to accept a number of Palestinians, for example, if some debts are forgiven or they are given better conditions to repay loans.

But the burden of having hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Palestinians in their territory with no possibility of return is a cost that Egypt cannot pay, even less so if the conflict or expulsion lasts for years.

Security

Egypt and Israel They collaborate on security matters and highly value that collaboration. Sinai is a territory where Cairo maintains armed combat with Islamist groups.

“In Egypt There is fear, whether for real reasons or just perception, that by resettling tens of thousands of people in that area they are ‘importing’ militants or sympathizers of Hamas, who in turn are close to the Muslim Brotherhood.”Lee indicated.

The Muslim Brotherhood, who briefly ruled Egypt in 2013 under Mohamed Morsi, they are considered a terrorist group by the government of Al Sisi, who since he took power after a coup d’état has been relentless in his persecution.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest Islamist organization and has served as an inspiration for many other groups in the region, including Hamas.

“There is bad blood between Egypt and Hamas, particularly because of its relationship with the Brotherhood”, so it does not make sense politically and for its security and stability to accept potential Islamist militants.

With information from EFE