By Palestine Chronicle Staff 
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Saturday that “the issue of displacement, which is a violation of international humanitarian law, whether internal or external, cannot be tolerated.”
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Shoukry described the consequences and threats that displacement poses to Egypt’s national security as “immense”.
“It puts a strain on our bilateral relations with Israel,” he remarked.
“We need to avoid the very tragic consequences on the civilians of Gaza who are now amassed in the most densely populated area in the world,” the minister continued.
“You can imagine that any extensive military action there will have a devastating effect on the humanitarian situation. People are already suffering,” Shoukri added.
On Thursday, The New York Times reported that Egypt was building a wall “near the border of the war-torn Gaza Strip, but no one is talking much about it.”
“It was not clear whether the structure might be intended to hold Gazans who crossed the border,” the report stated.
Shoukri, however, denied that Egypt is preparing to receive displaced Palestinians in the event of an Israeli invasion of Rafah. “This is very hypothetical,” he said, adding, “We have constantly been dealing with maintenance on our border so I think it is jumping to conclusions as to what those activities constitute”.
Israeli officials have repeatedly called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli government document, first reported in Israeli media and dated October 13, suggested the mass relocation of millions of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai desert.
The Egyptian government, however, has repeatedly rejected plans aimed at the forced displacement of Palestinians and their transfer to Egyptian territories in Sinai.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 28,858 Palestinians have been killed, and 68,677 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
(PC, AA)
