The President of the European Fee Ursula von der Leyen has met with Egypt’s president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo for talks on the battle.
Afterwards she stated the EU is against Israel’s “compelled displacement” of Palestinians within the Gaza Strip.
Von der Leyen additionally visited Sinai’s Al-Arish airport on Saturday the place worldwide help has been piling up for weeks, and after that the Rafah border crossing with Gaza.
Solely twin nationals and some severely in poor health or wounded Palestinians have been allowed to flee from Gaza by means of Rafah.
In contrast to many different wars, would-be refugees have been prevented from fleeing to security as all of the crossing factors out of Gaza are closed to them.
Egypt doesn’t desire a stream of refugees to move out of Gaza by means of Rafah, and Israel controls all the opposite border crossings out of the Strip which are actually all closed.
El-Sissi stated in October that Israel desires to drive a everlasting expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan and so nullify Palestinian calls for for statehood. He stated a mass exodus would threat bringing militants into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, from the place they could launch assaults on Israel, endangering the 2 nations’ 40-year-old peace treaty.
A Historical past Of Displacement
Displacement has been a serious theme of Palestinian historical past. Within the 1948 struggle round Israel’s creation, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians had been expelled or fled from what’s now Israel. Palestinians discuss with the occasion because the Nakba, Arabic for “disaster.”
Within the 1967 Mideast struggle, when Israel seized the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip, 300,000 extra Palestinians fled, principally into Jordan.
The refugees and their descendants now quantity almost six million, most dwelling in camps and communities within the West Financial institution, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The diaspora has unfold additional, with many refugees constructing lives in Gulf Arab nations or the West.
After preventing stopped within the 1948 struggle, Israel refused to permit refugees to return to their houses. Since then, Israel has rejected Palestinian calls for for a return of refugees as a part of a peace deal, arguing that it will threaten the nation’s Jewish majority.