Satellite images show Egypt building a wall near the Gaza Strip as the Israeli attack on Rafah approaches

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Egypt is building a wall and leveling land near its border with the Gaza Strip before A planned Israeli attack targeting the border city of RafahThe satellite images were analyzed Friday by The Associated Press.

Egypt, which has not publicly acknowledged the construction, has repeatedly warned Israel against forcibly expelling more than a million Palestinians now displaced in Rafah across the border into its territory while fighting the armed Hamas movement for a fifth month.

However, preparations on the Egyptian side of the border in the Sinai Peninsula indicate that Cairo is preparing for exactly this scenario. This could threaten the peace agreement concluded with Israel in 1979 It has been the backbone of regional security.

The Egyptian government did not respond to requests for comment on Friday from the Associated Press. On February 11, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement warning Israel about its possible attack on Rafah and its “displacement of the Palestinian people.”

Satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies on Thursday show construction work continuing on the wall, which is located along the Sheikh Zuweid-Rafah road, about 3.5 kilometers west of the border with Gaza. Pictures show cranes, trucks and what appear to be precast concrete barriers placed along the road.

These satellite images are consistent with features seen in a video released by the London-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights on February 12. The video shows a crane lifting the concrete walls into place along the road.

Also nearby, construction crews appear to be leveling and clearing land for an unknown purpose. This can also be seen in images taken from Planet Labs PBC in the area. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous Egyptian officials, described an “8-square-mile (20-square-kilometre) walled enclosure” being built in the area that could accommodate more than 100,000 people.

Hard-line officials within the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have raised the possibility of removing the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, something strongly opposed by the United States, Israel's main ally. The Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank are the lands that Palestinians hope to obtain to establish their future state.

The Israeli army referred questions related to construction in Egypt to Netanyahu's office, who did not immediately respond.

A report issued by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, drafted just six days after the October 7 Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, includes a proposal to move Gaza's civilian population to tent cities in northern Sinai, and then build permanent cities and a camp. Unspecified humanitarian corridor

Since then, the war between Israel and Hamas has devastated large swaths of the coastal enclave and killed more than 28,600 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.