Egypt's coup regime has devastated its own people in Sinai

A new report by Human Rights Watch has cast light on the scale of the Egyptian dictatorship’s crimes against its own people in the Sinai region.

The report on forced evictions in the Egyptian town of Rafah says that “at least 3,255” homes, businesses and other local buildings have been demolished by the military since it came back to full power in the coup of July 2013. Innocent people have been forced to move out of their own homes, often at extremely short notice and with little or no compensation in return.

The report opens with a moving quotation from one of the local people who has suffered at the hands of the military in this way, reflecting on what she lost: “I myself used to make food and tea for the soldiers and they came and sat in the shade of our olive tree when the sun beat down on them… My mother told me: ‘The tree is your responsibility. I fed you from it and raised you on it. Even in times of war, we lived from its oil when nobody could find food.’ Now there’s nothing I can do but hold the tree and kiss it and say, ‘Forgive me, mom, what can I do.'”

The town of Rafah sits near the border with Palestine, close to the Gaza city of the same name. Historically, these two places were one city, but as the saying goes, these people did not cross the border, the border crossed them.

The Israeli siege on Gaza, most viciously enforced since 2007, has meant that underground tunnels have often become a lifeline to provide basic provisions and supplies all-too-often denied by Israel’s clinical and sadistic punishment siege which is intended to put Palestinians “on a diet” in revenge for voting the wrong way in democratic elections back in 2006. The tunnels have also been used by Palestinian resistance factions to bring in weapons in order to defend the small coastal territory from Israeli attack.

But since the Egyptian military came back into direct power in the July 2013 coup, it has cracked down on the tunnels more than previous administrations, destroying and closing off many of them through flooding.

The coup of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was brutal, and has brooked no dissent. Protesters were literally shot off the streets, with more than 800 being murdered in one day in August 2013. One of the consequences of this bloodshed has been an unfortunate flowering in the activities of armed insurgent groups in the Sinai.

Initially known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, one particularly deadly group has now sworn intelligence to the so-called Islamic State, renaming itself the Sinai Province. It is this group that it’s though was responsible for a deadly attack in October last year in which 28-31 soldiers (reports varied) were killed.

While this group is of course a genuine threat, the response of the Egyptian state has been nothing short of collective punishment against the entire civilian population of the area. Not only will this make things worse, but the way they have gone about it makes it seem little more than a pretext to get away with things they wanted to do anyway.

Satellite imagery examined by Human Rights Watch and published in the report shows that entire areas of Rafah have been bulldozed and blown-up by the army in order to make way for a “buffer zone,” between Egypt and Gaza.

The Egyptian military and its propagandising media outlets claim this is because of “terrorists” smuggling in weapons from Gaza which are then used to attack Egypt. But there is no evidence whatsoever of this.

Indeed, Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group which controls Gaza has repeatedly made its antagonism towards both al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State clear in words and deeds. Islamic State declared war against Hamas earlier this year and Hamas has fought against it and prevented it from taking root in Gaza, as I reported in May.

While Hamas and other resistance factions have used the tunnels to bring weapons into Gaza, there are no credible reports that show weapons have gone in the other direction as the Egyptian regime has claimed. And considering the state of outright war between Hamas and Islamic State, the claim makes little sense.

What does seem clear, however, is the fact that the Egyptian regime, with the encouragement and military aid of the US, is wanting to do Israel’s bidding in the region.

As Sisi is quoted in the report: “When we take security measures in the Sinai, those measures confirm our sovereignty over the Sinai, which is part and parcel of Egyptian territory. We will never allow anyone to launch attacks from our territory against neighbours or against Israel.”

As my colleague Ali Abunimah has put it: “Sisi’s subservience to Israel is certainly an extension of the anti-Palestinian policies adopted by Egypt’s ruling elite since the two countries made peace in the 1970s. But Sisi, in particular, owes a debt of gratitude to Israel lobby groups including AIPAC, which urged the US administration of President Barack Obama to back his coup regime.”

The enforcement of these powers’ cynical self-interest will only boost the malign interests of groups like “Islamic State” in the long run. Only the return of democracy to Egypt could begin to put things right.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.