GAZA: Egypt categorically denied allegations of participating in any process involving the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula, the country’s State Information Service (SIS) said on Friday.
Four sources told Reuters that Egypt, as a precautionary measure, is preparing an area at the Gaza border which could accommodate Palestinians in case an Israeli offensive into Rafah prompts an exodus across the frontier.
The news was also reported by other outlets, including the Wall Street Journal.
“Egypt’s decisive stance since the beginning of the aggression ... is to completely reject any forced or voluntary displacement of Palestinian brothers from the Gaza Strip to outside it, especially to Egyptian territory,” Diaa Rashwan, the SIS head, said in a statement.
He said such scenario would entail “a definite liquidation of the Palestinian cause and a direct threat to Egyptian sovereignty and national security.”
The Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an activist organization, published images on Monday it said showed construction trucks and cranes working in the area and images of concrete barriers along the border.
“Egypt has already had a buffer zone and barriers in this area for a long time before the current crisis erupted. These are measures taken by any country in the world to preserve the security of its borders and its sovereignty over its territories,” Rahswan added.
Describing any sort of displacement as a “crime advocated by some Israeli parties,” Rashwan said Egypt will take all necessary measures to stop it.
Earlier this week, Egypt hosted talks involving the US, Israel and Qatar on a possible Gaza truce. An Egyptian source said the country was optimistic that talks to clinch a ceasefire can avoid the prospect of displacement.
Egypt denies allegations of participating in any process involving displacement of Gazans into Sinai
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Egypt denies allegations of participating in any process involving displacement of Gazans into Sinai
Sites that remind Syrians of Assad brutality become sets for TV series
- Show to be aired in February during Ramadan, primetime viewing in the Arab world
DAMASCUS: At a Damascus air base once off-limits under Bashar Assad, a crew films a TV series about the final months of the ousted leader’s rule as seen through the eyes of a Syrian family.
“It’s hard to believe we’re filming here,” director Mohamad Abdul Aziz said from the Mazzeh base, which was once also a notorious detention center run by Assad’s air force intelligence branch, known for its terrible cruelty.
The site in the capital’s southwestern suburbs “used to be a symbol of military power. Now we are making a show about the fall of that power,” he said.
Assad fled to Russia as an opposition-led offensive closed in on Damascus, taking it without a fight on Dec. 8 last year after nearly 14 years of civil war and half a century of Assad dynasty rule.
The scene at the Mazzeh base depicts the escape of a figure close to Assad, and is set to feature in “The King’s Family” filmed in high-security locations once feared by regular Syrians.
The series is to be aired in February during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, primetime viewing in the Arab world, when channels and outlets vie for the attention of eager audiences.
Dozens of actors, directors and other show business figures who were opposed to Assad have returned to Syria since his ouster, giving the local industry a major boost, while other series have also chosen to film at former military or security sites.
“It’s a strange feeling ... The places where Syria used to be ruled from have been transformed” into creative spaces, Abdul Aziz said.
Elsewhere in Damascus, his cameras and crew now fill offices at the former military intelligence facility known as Palestine Branch, where detainees once underwent interrogation so brutal that some never came out alive.
“Palestine Branch was one of the pillars of the security apparatus — just mentioning its name caused terror,” Abdul Aziz said of the facility, known for torture and abuse.
Outside among charred vehicles, explosions and other special effects, the team was recreating a scene depicting “the release of detainees when the security services collapsed,” he said.
Thousands of detainees were freed when jails were thrown open as Assad fell last year, and desperate Syrians converged on the facilities in search of loved ones who disappeared into the prison system, thousands of whom are still missing.
Assad’s luxurious, high-security residence, which was stormed and looted after he fled to Russia, is also part of the new series.
Abdul Aziz said he filmed a fight scene involving more than 150 people and gunfire in front of the residence in Damascus’s upscale Malki district.
“This was impossible to do before,” he said.
The series’ scriptwriter Maan Sakbani, 35, expressed cautious relief that the days of full-blown censorship under Assad were over.
The new authorities’ Information Ministry still reviews scripts but the censor’s comments on “The King’s Family” were very minor, he said from a traditional Damascus house where the team was discussing the order of scenes.
Sakbani said he was uncertain how long the relative freedom would last, and was waiting to see the reaction to the Ramadan productions once they were aired.
Several other series inspired by the Assad era are also planned for release at that time, including “Enemy Syrians,” which depicts citizens living under the eyes of the security services.
Another, “Going Out to the Well,” directed by Mohammed Lutfi and featuring several prominent Syrian actors, is about deadly prison riots in the infamous Saydnaya facility in 2008.
Rights group Amnesty International had called the facility a “human slaughterhouse.”
“The show was written more than two years ago and we intended to film it before Assad’s fall,” Lutfi said.
But several actors feared the former authorities’ reaction and they were unable to find a suitable location since filming in Syria was impossible.
Now, they plan to film on site.
“The new authorities welcomed the project and provided extensive logistical support and facilities for filming inside Saydnaya prison,” Lutfi said.
As a result, it will be possible “to convey the prisoners’ suffering and the regime’s practices — from the inside the actual location,” he said.
