Egypt threatens to send troops, aircraft to Sinai Peninsula after Gazan displacement

The military official told al-Akhbar that “instructions for a plan to deal with any emergency include not shooting at any Palestinian approaching the border.”

Egypt is threatening military escalation in response to the mass displacement of Gazans, an Egyptian military official told Hezbollah-affiliated al-Akhbar in a Saturday report.

Potential Egyptian military actions would include doubling the number of Egyptian soldiers and transferring weapons and aircraft to the Sinai Peninsula, with the source adding that it hopes to act as a “deterrent to Tel Aviv.”

The military official told the source that “instructions for a plan to deal with any emergency include not shooting at any Palestinian approaching the border, and dealing with the matter exclusively according to humanitarian standards.”

The source added that “displacement to the border poses a direct threat to Egyptian national security and requires a different military situation from the current one.”

Cairo, through contacts with US officials, has also expressed its “displeasure with repeated Israeli reports on allegations that drones are being used to smuggle weapons to Hamas through Egypt,” al-Akhbar quoted them as saying.

Egypt says displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City ‘red line’

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told CNN last month that any mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza was a “red line.”

“We will not accept it, we will not participate in it, and we will not allow it to happen,” he added in the interview.

He also added that Cairo was working with “different channels, with one objective, to alleviate the burden and suffering of Palestinians.”

Reuters contributed to this report.