It has been the 39th day of the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel and so far more than 10 thousand people have lost their lives. As this war progresses, the world's attention is focusing on Egypt. Because it shares borders with both Israel and Gaza. Israel has announced that it will destroy Hamas and will not stop until it does so. Along with this, he also told Egypt about settling the Palestinians from Gaza in the Sinai area. Both of these things are extremely dangerous for Cairo, because instead of destroying Hamas, it prefers the policy of carrying it along and controlling it.
Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi regime and Israel have enjoyed close ties over the past decade. Since Sisi came to power in 2013, Israel has become a close ally, with increased security cooperation and closer economic ties. In 2018, a report came out that Sisi asked for Israel's help in suppressing the growing rebellion in Sinai and it responded by carrying out airstrikes in Sinai against the rebels. In such a situation, Egypt is in tension due to the war between Hamas and Israel.
Egypt wants to save Hamas
Hamas worked closely with Egypt to fight Islamic State group (IS) militants in Sinai and suppress IS presence in Gaza. 2020 also included increased border security cooperation with the construction of the border wall between Gaza and Egypt. Israel's apparent intention to destroy Hamas is a major blow to the Egyptian regime, because if Hamas is eliminated in Gaza, it will create a power vacuum that other militant groups will take advantage of and which could spread to the Sinai.
Countries around the world are busy condemning Israel, but are not doing anything for the Gazans. Egypt, adjacent to Gaza, has also refused to give shelter to the refugees in its country. He gave the reason behind this that this will completely end the demand of Palestine and Israel will attack the Gaza Strip. However, there are several reasons behind this, the first being that the Egyptian government has very few resources to manage the large number of Palestinians coming to Sinai and second the refugees in Sinai could be a threat to its security.
A major security threat to Egypt
Refugees from Gaza, some of whom may be armed individuals associated with Hamas or other radical groups, could create instability in the Sinai. The danger for Egypt is that there could be more terrorist attacks and instability as there was in Sinai before the 2017 deal with Hamas. Some of those attacks were carried out by well-armed and trained Gaza-based terrorist units.
The elimination of Hamas from Gaza could lead to lack of governance, anarchy and instability. This could encourage smuggling of weapons and fighters across Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip. Along with this, terrorist activities can be started by Palestinian extremist groups in Israel from Sinai, which can jeopardize the delicate relations between Israel and Egypt.
There is also a theory going on
Along with this, there is also a theory running in some media websites that Israel has started the war to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip in order to implement the Ben Gurion Canal project as an alternative to Egypt's Suez Canal. However, there is no confirmed information about this.
The Ben Gurion Canal (which the Israeli regime is planning to build as an alternative to the Suez) is a 260 kilometer corridor stretching from the Gaza-Ashkelon region to the Red Sea. It is being said that the construction of this canal will cause huge economic loss to Egypt, because about 12 percent of the world's trade passes through Suez on 18,000 ships every year. So you can imagine that a lot of countries will be queuing up to take part in this deal. The Suez Canal cost Egypt a staggering $9.4 billion, which has generated record-breaking revenues this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment