Egypt to evacuate people living near Gaza border

The Egyptian government has ordered people living on Egypt’s eastern border with the Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes. This is because the Egyptian army plans to demolish these houses to make way for a buffer zone between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

The order comes four days after armed men killed at least 31 Egyptian soldiers and injured 28 others in the Sinai Peninsula, the heaviest defeat that the Egyptian army has suffered in its 15-month battle against Islamist militants based in Sinai, starting with the military’s ousting of President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013. Following the attack, Egypt declared a state of emergency and a dawn-to-dusk curfew in the Sinai region. They also closed off the Gaza crossing, the only passage the Palestinian territory has with the outside world that doesn’t pass through Israel.

The buffer zone will be 500 meters wide and will extend along the 13km border between Egypt and Gaza, Egyptian officials told the AP news agency. It will also include water-filled trenches to thwart tunnel diggers. The aim is to stop the flow of weapons between Egypt and Gaza.

Egyptian soldiers initially gave residents of the future buffer zone a 48-hour ultimatum to evacuate their homes but this was put on hold after residents protested, officials said. Residents are now negotiating with local officials about extending the deadline.

The Egyptian army have destroyed several of the network of tunnels that connects Sinai with Gaza over the past three years. Yet armed Islamist groups in Sinai have bulked up their presence in the peninsula since Morsi’s toppling in 2013. Egyptian authorities blame Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood allies. The organisation, which is now branded as a ;terrorist organisation’ has denied links to violence in Sinai. Some sections of Egyptian media have also accused Hamas, rulers of Gaza, of supporting armed groups in Egypt. Hamas officials have also denied such interference and have criticised Egypt’s government for imposing strict border rules. An al-Qaeda-linked group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Egyptian soil in the past.