The Egyptian authorities have decided to remove the city of Rafah on the borders with the Gaza Strip completely, says the governor of North Sinai district Abd al-Fattah Harhour.I couldn't find this story on major Egyptian sites, although it was in BBC Arabic.
In a news conference Wednesday, Harhour said it would be necessary to remove Rafah city completely in order to create a buffer zone on the borders with the Gaza Strip.
“A new Rafah city is being established with residential zones appropriate to the nature and traditions of the residents of Rafah.”
He confirmed that engineering units have already been asked to start work on the new city.
The governor’s remarks came ahead of the second stage of evacuation of Rafah houses in preparation to create a buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza. According to the original plan, 1,220 houses were slated for evacuation.
Some 2,044 families live in those houses.
I couldn't find out the population of Rafah altogether; from looking at Google maps and comparing it to Rafah in Gaza I would guess about 10,000 people live there. Here's part of it showing that already there is a lot of empty space on the border with Gaza.
I haven't yet heard from the Egyptian Committee Against House Demolitions. Perhaps because it doesn't exist.
I also haven't seen any starry-eyed university students volunteering to be human shields to stand between bulldozers and the houses.
On a more serious note, I had been a little skeptical about Egypt's claims of massive support of Sinai jihadists from Gaza jihadists and Hamas. After all, the weapons have been smuggled through Sinai to Gaza, it seems odd that they would be smuggled back, unless Egypt has made great progress in stopping weapons smuggling routes from Libya and Sudan.
However, it seems less likely that Egypt would move an entire town for show.