By Ahmed Amin
GAZA CITY, Palestine
Insecurity in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is adversely affecting the Gaza Strip, Palestinian experts told Anadolu Agency.
Egyptian army troops and bases have been attacked in recent months by the Welayet Sinai (Province of Sinai) group, which has killed tens of Egyptian soldiers and injured dozens of others.
Hany Habib, a political analyst with the al-Ayam Palestinian newspaper, said that the Gaza Strip is greatly affected by security incidents in Egyptian territory.
He said that the Gaza Strip is strongly intertwined with Egypt, especially with regards to the political and security spheres.
"Egypt is Gaza’s only gate with the world and negative events inside Egypt adversely affect it," he said.
He also explained that restoring peaceful and calm conditions in Sinai and Egypt will directly alleviate the conditions of suffering Gazans.
Egyptian authorities have closed the Rafah crossing with Gaza in a semi-complete manner, and linked the re-opening of the crossing with the restoration of security in north Sinai.
Authorities in Egypt did, however, open the crossing for one week in both directions on June 13 last year, and reopened it for three days on the 23rd of the same month.
This allowed the passage of humanitarian cases through the crossing, as well as necessary construction materials that Israel has banned for more than eight years.
The main thing affecting relations between Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and Egypt is terrorist attacks in Sinai, said Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a professor at al-Azhar University in Gaza.
An Egyptian court decided on June 6, 2014, to overturn a decision that considered Hamas a terrorist organization; a decision that was taken on Feb. 28 last year.
According to Waleed al-Modallal, director of the Center for Political and Development Studies in Gaza, closing the Rafah crossing is a normal reaction to the deteriorating security situation in Sinai.
The government-run association responsible for crossings in Gaza said that Egyptian authorities promised to open the Rafah crossing three days a week. They added, however, that this was linked to the development of security conditions in Sinai.
Rafah crossing is the only land outlet for the more than 1.8 million inhabitants of Gaza. Since 2007, Israel and Egypt have blockaded the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air.
The embargo has deprived the besieged enclave’s residents of the most basic of commodities – including food, fuel and medicine – and turned the entire territory into a de facto prison.
Gazans are not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip without the permission of the Israeli authorities.
