Egypt tightening Gaza siege

Qudsna:

It was expected that the establishment of a unity government in Palestine and the Egyptian truce would end the siege on Gaza however bad news are on air in the past few days divulging efforts for closing the Rafah crossing (the sole non-Israeli way for Gaza to the world outside) forever.

Egypt was expected to broker a round of non-direct talk between Hamas and the Zionist regime over the Gaza truce deal on Monday. Egypt instead announced the launching of a buffer zone across the Rafah crossing.

Egypt says the buffer project was a response to a terror attack in Sinai that left over 60 Egyptian soldiers killed or injured however the project has been premeditated and the government only sought some chance for carrying it out.

The Zionist regime has long sought to close the Rafah crossing so as to take the control of all the existing routes to Gaza. The regime offered the then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2004 to build a buffer zone under a so-called Philadelphia deal. Under the project, water canals would be dug across the Rafah crossing so as to prevent any movement of Palestinian resistance fighters.

The project was suspended until the Zionist regime took a humiliating defeat in a 22-day war against the Gaza resistance in 2008. The regime then put it again on agenda however the popular uprising in Tunisia and then in Egypt wrested an ousted Mubarak any chance to carry it out.

The return of Egyptian military to power led by al-Sisi this time under the name of ‘buffer zone’ showing some cooperation between the Egyptian government and the Israeli regime. The two sides seem to be aiming to use a so-called anti-ISIL coalition to secure their own interests; Egypt seeks to size down a range of constraints imposed under the Camp David treaty and Israel seeks to use the buffer zone as a replacement for the disarmament of Gaza. Israel also seeks to use the situation to divide Hamas and Fatah and fail their unity government.

Of note is that the prime suspect behind the Sinai attack is affiliated to al-Qaeda terror group, further showing how the terror group was serving the Zionist regime.

Ahmad Kazemzadeh