Egypt asks Israel to explain minister’s remarks about ‘Palestinian state in Sinai’

The Foreign Ministry in Cairo has asked its counterpart in Israel to explain the comments made by Minister of Social Equality Gila Gamliel about creating a Palestinian state in Sinai, Quds Press reported on Monday. A ministry official told Israeli TV that they were personal comments and did not represent government policy.

Gamliel is in Cairo to participate in a conference about women. Last week she said that, “It is impossible to create a Palestinian state except in Sinai.” She was put under intensive close protection when she arrived in Egypt, where she was received by the Israeli ambassador to Cairo, David Govrin. The minister said that Egypt’s insistence on going ahead with the conference despite Friday’s atrocity in Sinai is a message to terrorists that all states in the region are united against extremist and terrorism.

When asked to explain her call for a Palestinian state in Sinai, she explained: “This call could be unacceptable to the international community and the Arab countries, which are neighbours to Israel, but it is based on our primary and historic right to the land of Israel.” She rejected a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, noting that this threatens Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

In February, former Israeli minister Aryeh Eldad claimed that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi had proposed to Israel the creation of a Palestinian state in Sinai. Israel denied this. However, the Israeli Communication Minister, Ayoub Qarra, also claimed that Al-Sisi had proposed creating a Palestinian state in Gaza and Sinai, saying that this project would see 1,600 square kilometres of North Sinai being annexed to the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu: Israel, Egypt fighting against ‘terror of radical Islam’ together