The Egyptian-Gaza border is another major point of contention.!!!

WAR-REPORT:- The control, security, humanitarian assistance and movement of people around the Egyptian-Gaza border is another major point of contention. In the first weeks of the war, an official spokesman for the Israeli army indicated that Palestinians should head to Egypt, which Cairo strongly criticized. Israel responded by indicating that the border crossing was closed.

Egypt carried out a diplomatic campaign explaining why it could not accept refugees, resulting in a firm pushback from Western powers.

Around 100,000 Palestinians have fled from Gaza to Egypt since the beginning of the war. The fear of mass displacement was heightened during the beginning of the attack on Rafah. But, a staggering one million Palestinians fled Rafah, mainly heading north to Khan Younis and were not forced to go to Egypt, reducing tension over mass expulsion.

Israel’s operation in Rafah has been another major stressor in the relationship. For weeks, the international community — including the U.S., the EU, and Arab states — urged Israel not to attack Rafah, particularly since there was no plan to protect the 1.4 million civilians that were living there, to no avail. However, this campaign clearly affected the extent of the severity of the attack.

A secondary result of the Rafah operation was Israel taking control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor, leading Egypt to close the Rafah crossing. Egypt has refused to reopen it and allow humanitarian aid to pass through as long as Israeli forces maintain control over the Palestinian side of the crossing, and Israel objects to the Palestinian Authority (PA) taking control of the crossing indicating that it can go through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

The U.S. has been working to resolve this impasse and is expected to soon present a proposal for reopening the crossing.

The issue of tunnels has become particularly fraught. In a statement before the ICJ, Israel indicated that it had discovered at least 50 tunnels in the Gaza-Egypt border area, but it was not clear how many of them crossed the border into Egypt. Egypt has been working to make sure that all these tunnels are destroyed.

A recent report indicated that secret military documents reveal that more than 2,000 tunnels were destroyed by Egyptian military engineers in the Rafah area between 2011 and 2015. An Egyptian official also indicated that Egypt had destroyed over 1,500 tunnels over the years.

It was also reported that Egypt flooded the tunnels and relocated people living close to the border to other areas and a buffer zone was established to deal with the problem. Still, Israel publicly aired its distrust surrounding this issue.