Egypt is suspected of building refugee camps on the border with Gaza
Published 27 February 2024 at 17.10
FOREIGN. Egypt is building walls around an area outside the border town of Rafah in Gaza. It is suspected that what is being built is intended to be a refugee camp for Palestinians - something that Egypt, however, rejects, reports SVT Nyheter.

It is about a 16 square kilometer area near Rafah, where walls and other structures have been built.

Despite rumors of a potential refugee camp for displaced Palestinians, Egypt denies this, claiming the area is to be used as a "logistics hub" for "humanitarian aid shipments".

However, the human rights organization Sinai Foundation questions Egypt's claims and believes that the new construction is a preparation to receive Palestinian refugees. The Wall Street Journal reports that government sources indicate that large quantities of tents have been transported to the site. In addition, people the BBC spoke to stress that the scale of the area and the lack of involvement from aid organizations suggests that there is no coordination of aid shipments.

The Israeli government has signaled several times that it is planning an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and that it is happy to send the displaced Palestinians on to countries in the Western world.

Egypt receives a large aid from the United States to accommodate Israel, a sum of billions that can be adjusted if necessary.