Cairo, Sep 6 (IANS) Egypt has condemned remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting Palestinians could be displaced from their land, including through the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry, on Friday, accused Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the conflict to avoid accountability for Israel’s actions in Gaza, and reiterated Cairo’s rejection of any plan to expel Palestinians, Xinhua news agency reported.
The targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is forcing Palestinians to leave, the Ministry said, calling such practices a violation of international humanitarian law that could amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
It urged the international community to hold those responsible to account.
Egypt said that it would not be complicit in “liquidating the Palestinian cause or becoming a gateway for displacement”, describing that as a “red line”.
It called for a ceasefire in Gaza, a full Israeli withdrawal, and international backing for the Palestinian Authority to return to the territory, including control of border crossings.
The Ministry said the Rafah crossing should be re-operated under the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, and pressed the UN Security Council to protect Palestinians and support their right to remain in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
It also stressed that only the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital could resolve the conflict.
Netanyahu told the Telegram channel Abu Ali Express on Thursday that Egypt was “imprisoning” Gaza residents who wanted to leave, saying Israel would permit them to cross at Rafah but Egypt was blocking them.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry called Netanyahu’s remarks “a blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law”.
“These remarks also represent a flagrant encroachment on the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to remain on their land and establish their independent, sovereign state on the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Jordan stressed its “absolute rejection and condemnation of the continued extremist Israeli measures and statements aimed at imposing new realities on the Palestinians by force”.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry also decried the Israeli premier’s statements as “an extension of the occupation’s policy of violating the rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, showing contempt for international laws and agreements, and pursuing malicious efforts to block the path to peace, particularly the two-state solution”.
“The policy of collective punishment practiced by the occupation against Palestinians, including the ongoing brutal genocide in the Gaza Strip, its crimes in the West Bank, its violations of religious sanctities, its plans to expand settlements and Judaize Jerusalem, and its restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid to civilians, will not succeed in forcing the Palestinian people to abandon their land or confiscating their legitimate rights.”
Since the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 people and led to about 250 hostages being taken, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians and wounded 161,000, according to Gaza health authorities.
–IANS
int/khz
