Egypt could suspend the peace treaty with Israel if the Israeli military enters Rafah or forces Palestinian refugees into the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel is bombarding Rafah, which remains the last major city in the Gaza Strip not yet subjected to an Israeli offensive.
Rafah is on Gaza’s border with Egypt, where fears are growing that Israel could use its war to move Palestinians across the border into North Sinai, something Cairo strongly rejects.
For its part, Egypt continues to work on increasing the height of the concrete wall on the Gaza border and is installing barbed wire to deter Palestinians from trying to cross into Sinai.
Israel’s Western allies and the Arab has many times warned Tel Aviv of a humanitarian catastrophe if Israel decides to advance on the city, which is overrun with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Egyptian officials informed the Israeli counterparts through Western intermediaries that any attempt to push the Palestinians into Sinai “would effectively suspend” the 1979 peace treaty.
Egypt was one of the first Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel, but tensions between the two countries rose after the Israel-Hamas conflict began on 7 October, leading to the deaths of more than 28,000 Palestinians.
