According to The Wall Street Journal, Egypt has recently warned that if the Israeli military enters Rafah in southern Gaza or if Palestinian refugees are forced to flee to the Sinai Peninsula, it may suspend its peace treaty with Israel.
Israeli ground troops are preparing to storm Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s last major urban center that has yet to see an Israeli incursion. Dozens of people have already been killed in airstrikes.
Israel’s Western allies and Arab states have warned Tel Aviv that invading the city, which is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, would result in a humanitarian catastrophe.
Rafah is located on Gaza’s border with Egypt, and there are growing concerns that Israel will use its war to displace Palestinians across the border into North Sinai, a plan strongly opposed by Cairo.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Egyptian officials informed their Israeli counterparts via Western intermediaries that any attempt to push Palestinians into Sinai “would effectively suspend” the 1979 Camp David peace treaty.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, is attempting to mediate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian organization Hamas, which Israel has vowed to destroy.
The latest developments come as reports emerge that Egypt is working to raise the height of its concrete border wall with Gaza and install barbed wire in an effort to stop Israel’s attempt to deter Palestinians from crossing into Sinai.
