Egypt fears that Israel will try to push millions of Palestinians over the border into the Sinai desert leaving Egypt indefinitely responsible for hundreds of thousands of refugees – and risking bankrupting the country’s ailing economy. Cairo is also fighting its own Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula.
Palestinians themselves, and other Arab states, fear refugees would never be allowed back to their homes.
Israel’s leaders have not spelled out their long-term plan for Palestinian refugees, but
some former diplomats said Egypt would need to build “tent cities” for refugees in the desert. Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to the US,
said Egypt should take people temporarily. “There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai desert just on the other side of Gaza,” he said.
Israeli diplomats deny their goal is to expel Palestinians from Gaza as they fight Hamas, although the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has said the plan is to “eliminate everything”.
Another minister, Gideon Sa’ar, has said Gaza “must be smaller at the end of the war”.