BEIRUT (Reuters) – Calls for a humanitarian corridor or an escape route for Palestinians from Gaza as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has escalated have drawn a blunt reaction from Arab neighbours.
Egypt, the only Arab state to share a border with Gaza, and Jordan, which is next to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have both warned against Palestinians being forced off their land.
It reflects deep-rooted Arab fears that Israel’s latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from land where Palestinians want to build a future state.
“This is the cause of all causes, the cause of all Arabs,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Thursday. “It is important that the (Palestinian) people remain steadfast and present on their land.”
For Palestinians, the idea of leaving or being forced out of land where they want to forge a state carries echoes of the “Nakba”, or “catastrophe”, when many Palestinians fled their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
