Along the border with the Gaza Strip, the Engineer Corps of the Egyptian Armed Forces is carrying out ground clearing operations following the demolition of hastily evacuated citizens' homes, in preparation for creating a buffer zone with the Strip.
Sinai – A multitude of machines, including excavators, bulldozers, and transport vehicles, have been active on the border area from 5 am to 5 pm every day. After the homes are blown up, the bulldozers fill the trucks with the debris. Other machines level the ground, erasing all sign of human life, under the supervision of senior officials from the armed forces in the North Sinai governorate.
The head of the army command in Rafah, Major General Mohammed al-Saadani, told Al-Akhbar that the committee formed to catalogue the houses and evaluate their actual worth is still receiving requests from citizens and is finalizing procedures for receiving compensation. He added that some of the payments had been cashed, in addition to 900 Egyptian pounds ($128) urgently provided to each family. He explained that most families had left their homes.
According to a security source in Rafah, military committees are sweeping and leveling the area and work on the creation of the buffer zone has already begun.
In the meantime, dozens of families are still waiting in a big courtyard inside Rafah after evacuating their homes and being unable to find alternative residences. They remain in the open, living in difficult conditions. This led several local associations to collect blankets and some tents to send to them, but the army has banned tents in the Rafah region.
Riad Saleh al-Qunbuz, who was displaced from the border part of the town, saw his house being demolished as part of the army's plan to confront terrorism in northern Sinai. "Since 1986, we had been dreaming of the development of North Sinai and particularly Rafah," he told Al-Akhbar. "But today, after two revolutions, we have been displaced from the homes we built with our own sweat and blood."
"We endured what no human on this earth could handle. We endured the mistakes of all the regimes and presidents. We patiently waited for the promises made by all the governments. But none of them came to fruition. Yet we pay the highest price [for the war on] terrorism. We pay with the land of our forefathers. We leave the homes we dreamt of owning for years, in return for LE300 ($43) in compensation to rent an apartment."
Qunbuz points to a pile of furniture.
"This is the furniture of my two-storey home, strewn on its rubble. I don't know how or where to take it or my family. I want to stress that we still haven’t received any compensation, although we were promised that the compensation will be paid on the same night of evacuating the homes and leveling them to the ground," he said.
Ahmed Suleiman stood next to the rubble of his own home in Rafah.
"They demolished my home. Everybody is selling their furniture for cheap. The areas of the demolished homes were vast, since our tribal character and culture requires it. And God awarded many of us a large number of children," he explained. "But we do not know where to go or what is the real reason for evicting us from our land. None of us were implicated in acts of sabotage."
"Our children are suffering here. Although we live without schools, education, or minimum care, we are satisfied with this and holding on to our ancestors' lands. Actually, we have suffered the most from the operations carried out by the takfiri groups here. And now we are paying the price of their actions," he added.
The decision to evacuate a 500-meter wide strip adjacent to Egypt’s border with Gaza towards the center of the city was implemented without taking any measures to protect the residents or transfer them to a safe location after being forced to evacuate their homes. Egyptian authorities are using this plan to gauge the feasibility of the decision, in preparation for similar measures to empty Rafah in North Sinai from its residents.
A few days following the implementation of the 500-meter evacuation decision, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahleb issued decree 1957/2014. It called for isolating Rafah, based on the defense minister's recommendations for the strategic direction in the northeastern sector of the North Sinai governorate.
The area cordoned off by the decree was: "Abu Shanar - al-Rasm north of Sadat Square for a distance of 880 meters, southeast of Sadat Square for 500 meters, southeast of Sadat Square for 1.5 kilometers, north of Goz Abou Raad for 400 meters, Goz Abou Raad, East of Goz Abou Raad for 2 kilometers, west of al-Madfouna for 1 kilometer, and northeast Atlet al-Tayyara for 2 kilometers at the intersection of the political border line."
The second article of the decree called for the evacuation of the area mentioned above and the provision of alternative residences for the evacuees. In the event of refusal to evacuate amicably, the decree called for the seizure of property.
Article 3 of the decision stated that compensation would be estimated based on the Public Mobilization Law and the two Presidential decisions, 2152 of the year 1960 and 540 of 1987, related to the creation of committees to estimate and compensate seized property.
The decree puts into force the sixth item of Article 3 of the Emergency Law, allowing the president or a delegated authority to evacuate areas where a state of emergency is declared. This is in addition to item four of the same article that allows the confiscation of real estate and movable property.
The people of North Sinai reacted with fury and resentment towards the prime minister's decision. They considered this to be an extension of the cleansing Rafah region, from the center to the peripheries, following the expulsion of its residents to different areas. This would lead to the dispersion and breakup of families and the elimination of community and family bonds.
According to activist Mona al-Zamlout, the media "brainwashed the Egyptians into believing the evacuation in the Egyptian-side of Rafah serves the war on terror. However, Rafah does not have terrorists and did not partake in any violence against the army. Citizens of North Sinai are not going to believe that displacing the people of Rafah is intended to fight terrorism."
"The problem with Rafah is the tunnels [with Gaza]. If the state's aim was national security, it would have created a free zone and commercial port after destroying the tunnels, which would have employed all of Sinai's young people. But Egypt took the easy road, expulsion under the pretext of eradicating terrorism coming through the tunnels with the Gaza Strip, which kept functioning until the moment of evacuation and with the knowledge of officials in the armed forces."
Political activist Said Aatiq, from the town of Sheikh Zuweid, indicated that "the people of Sinai are not happy with the situation in Rafah, since the citizens of Sinai will be the first to be harmed. For many years, they suffered from marginalization and exclusion, feeling as if they were third class citizens. Some of them feel the state treats them as foreigners and not as one of its own."
He added that several Sinai residents who collaborated with the army had been targeted by "terrorist organizations" in the peninsula. But the military command did not recognize them. "The state treats the people of Sinai as security informers and not as real partners for the stability of the Sinai territories. Everyone in Sinai is under suspicion. Officials did not involve the people of Sinai in a real partnership to confront terrorism."
Masad Abu Fajr, an expert on tribal affairs from Sinai and a former member of the Committee of Fifty to Amend the Constitution, considered the expulsion of the residents to be a declaration of war by the Egyptian state against the tribes of Sinai. It declared war against the three biggest and most brutal tribes in Sinai, which are, "from the south to the north: al-Tarabin, al-Sawarka, and al-Armilat."
"It is a real shame to even propose the idea of expulsion for discussion," he continued. "Expulsion is a crime the moment it is discussed."
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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