Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi Blames Israel For Gaza Aid Blockade

Pressure has mounted for aid to be allowed in through Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only access to the besieged territory not controlled by Israel.

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 18 October 2023 5:06 pm

Israeli airstrike in Bureij refugee camp Gaza Strip

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday said he would not allow any mass influx of refugees from Gaza.

He said it would set a precedent for "the displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan".

After talks with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Sisi blamed Israel's air strikes on the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt for the failure to get aid to the territory's 2.4 million people, reported AFP.

"The displacement of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt means the same displacement will take place for Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan," President Sisi warned, as per the report.

"Subsequently, the Palestinian state that we are talking about and that the world is talking about will become impossible to implement -- because the land is there, but the people are not," he was quoted as having said.

President Sisi's meeting with the German chancellor came as Gaza faced a 12th straight day of ferocious Israeli bombardment in retaliation for a shock cross-border attack launched by Hamas on October 7 that killed at least 1,400 people, most of them civilians, it mentioned.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Gaza, which is nearly out of electricity, food, water and fuel.

Pressure has mounted for aid to be allowed in through Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only access to the besieged territory not controlled by Israel.

President Sisi said Egypt "did not close" the crossing, but that "developments on the ground and the repeated bombings by Israel of the Palestinian side of the crossing have prevented its operation", the report said.

Hundreds of lorries carrying aid have been waiting for six days on the Egyptian side of the crossing, which Israeli aircraft has bombed four times, it said.

Olaf Scholz told reporters Berlin and Cairo "are working together to get humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip as quickly as possible."

The two leaders also warned against the threat of regional spillover, with the Egyptian president calling for "immediate international intervention" to put a stop to "dangerous military escalation that may get out of control", it mentioned.
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