Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced over the weekend that the border between Gaza and Egypt must be “closed,” and that Hamas cannot be “defeated” without doing so.
“We’ll destroy Hamas, we’ll demilitarize Gaza, and military equipment and other deadly weapons will continue to enter this southern opening, so of course we need to close it,” Netanyahu said in a press briefing on Saturday.
Cairo has sent Tel Aviv a series of increasingly dire warnings about Israel’s plans for the corridor, warning that an incursion into the 14 km-long strip of land would constitute a violation of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.
On Tuesday, Egyptian State Information Service chief Diaa Rashwan blasted Netanyahu over his “nonsense” remarks regarding the alleged arms flow from Egypt. Last week, Rashwan reiterated that an Israeli “occupation” of the Philadelphi Corridor would be a direct breach of the annexes to the peace treaty between Cairo and Tel Aviv.
By planning to seize the corridor, Israel risks unsettling its “greatest neighbor,” and a country with whom it Tel Aviv has fought several wars since Israel’s founding in 1948, Rashwan stressed. Egypt will “defend its national security” and “the central cause of Palestine” if Israel moves forward with plans to occupy the border area, he added.
“There is great competition, a power competition between two countries” over the border, Mehmet Rakipoglu, a Turkish-born researcher and Middle East specialist at Dimensions for Strategic Studies, a UK-based international affairs think tank, told Sputnik.
“Israel has no alternative rather than having total control over this border, because it seems that [it] has not achieved any goals in Gaza. So they are acting more offensively in this regard,” Rakipoglu said. At the same time, the observer noted that strategically, the corridor is of little if any strategic value to Tel Aviv.
“Israel’s main aim to control this corridor is punishing Gaza or punishing Palestinians in Gaza” by creating another highly-fortified border with the enclave, the analyst believes.
“Secondly, as far as I know, I have heard that from many Palestinians that Egypt and Qatar are working together to deal with Palestinians and Israelis. So maybe Israel is punishing Egypt [by threatening to take control of the border, ed.],” Rakipoglu said, pointing out that doing so could do serious political “damage” to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in his home country and be seen as a sign of weakness against Israeli aggression.
As for the timing of IDF threats and Netanyahu’s rhetoric, Rakipoglu believes it’s related to the Israeli military’s failure to defeat Hamas in Gaza, losses of time, troops and equipment, and the “psychological” impact of the Palestinian militant group managing to stand firm against a frontal assault by what has long been considered one of the region’s most powerful militaries.
Egypt “will not allow Israel to have full control over the corridor,” Rakipoglu said. “Egypt is the most powerful country in the Arab world in terms of military and also in terms of population. Egypt’s population is over 80 million. Until the normalization process of 1978-1979, Egypt has been on the front[line] in the fight against Israel. So it seems that Egypt has the power, has a capability to confront Israel.”
At the same time, Cairo does not seek military escalation, according to Rakipoglu, in part due to economic problems at home. “They will try to maintain the sovereignty over the security borders or the corridor and border with Israel. But I don't think that any country will come to side with Egypt, because there is no country that can take steps against Israel for the sake of Egypt's international interests,” the observer summed up.