NICOSIA: Egypt said on Friday it would not tolerate mass displacement of Palestinians and what it described as genocide, continuing to ratchet up its criticism of Israel’s Gaza offensive as thousands of residents of Gaza City defied Israeli orders to leave.
“Displacement is not an option and it is a red line for Egypt and we will not allow it to happen,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters in Nicosia.
“Displacement means liquidation and the end of the Palestinian cause and there is no legal or moral or ethical ground to evict people from their homeland,” he said.
His comments are in line with a hardening of Egyptian language this year about Israel’s conduct in the enclave, which borders Egypt, even as it has worked with Qatar and the US to try to mediate a ceasefire in the almost two-year-old war.
Repeating accusations of genocide levelled by the Egyptian leadership against Israel in recent months, he added: “What is happening on the ground is far beyond the imagination. There is a genocide in motion there, mass killing of civilians, artificial starvation created by the Israelis,” Abdelatty said.
Israeli authorities did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self defense. It is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that accuses it of genocide and which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned as “outrageous.”
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023,.
More than 64,000 Palestinians have since been killed, Gaza health authorities say, with much of the densely populated enclave laid to ruin and its residents facing a humanitarian crisis.
Israel began an offensive in Gaza City on August 10, in what Netanyahu says is a plan to defeat Hamas militants in the part of Gaza where Israeli troops fought most heavily in the war’s initial phase. It now controls about 40 percent of Gaza City, a military spokesperson said on Thursday.
Much of Gaza City was laid to waste in the war’s initial weeks in October-November 2023. About a million people lived there before the war, and hundreds of thousands are believed to have returned to live among the ruins, especially since Israel ordered people out of other areas and launched offensives elsewhere.
Egypt vows to block Palestinian displacement, hardens rhetoric on Gaza
https://arab.news/m78e5
Egypt vows to block Palestinian displacement, hardens rhetoric on Gaza
- Egypt says eviction of Gazans is a red line
- Foreign minister says a genocide is ‘in motion’ in Gaza
Israel army ‘temporarily suspends’ strike on south Lebanon
- The Israeli military issued a warning earlier on Saturday announcing an imminent strike and warning people in the Yanuh area of south Lebanon to evacuate immediately
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it would “temporarily” suspend a strike planned for Saturday that was intended to target what it described as Hezbollah military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
A November 2024 ceasefire sought to end over a year of fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, which broke out after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
But Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah members and infrastructure to stop the group from rearming.
The Israeli military issued a warning earlier on Saturday announcing an imminent strike and warning people in the Yanuh area of south Lebanon to evacuate immediately.
But later Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said “the strike was temporarily suspended,” adding that the military “continues to monitor the target.”
The suspension came after the Lebanese army “requested access again to the specified site... and to address the breach of the agreement,” he said on X.
Adraee added that the military would “not allow” Hezbollah to “redeploy or rearm.”
The year-old ceasefire monitoring mechanism includes the United Nations, the United States and France.
A Lebanese security source said the army had previously tried to search the building that the Israeli military wanted to target but could not because of objections from residents.
But the source told AFP that the Lebanese army was able to enter and search the building after returning a second time, because residents “felt threatened,” adding that they were evacuated over fears of a strike.
