Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty on Wednesday voiced strong opposition to Israel’s plan to establish a humanitarian tent city in the southern Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border.
In an official statement, Abdelatty declared that Cairo “firmly opposes any idea aimed at altering the demographic balance in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
He added that he had recently spoken with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff regarding international efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Abdelatty stressed that any agreement must include both the return of Israeli hostages and the full removal of restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.
The Egyptian Foreign Minister also proposed convening an international conference in Egypt to discuss the post-war reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
According to a report in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a source revealed that senior officials in Egypt’s General Intelligence Service delivered a clear message to Israeli political and security officials: advancing the tent city plan or maintaining an Israeli security presence along the Philadelphi Corridor could trigger a serious diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
The source also estimated that the plan would encounter major logistical and political hurdles. Egypt has reportedly reached out to Arab states identified as potential funders of the project and applied diplomatic pressure to discourage their participation.