Cairo: Dozens of Egyptians living near the Rafah crossing on the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip on Wednesday started evacuating their houses, as the army is expanding a military campaign against Islamist militants, local activists and media said.
Residents within an area of 300 metres west of the crossing were told to leave their houses within hours and the deadline for evacuation was to end later on Wednesday, the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram reported.
The evacuation is part of a plan to set up a buffer zone that will be expanded to 500 metres, according to the report. The evacuees will be compensated, Al Ahram said.
The move comes days after 30 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a sophisticated attack in North Sinai, prompting authorities to impose a state of emergency and a night-time curfew in the area. Egypt also declared an indefinite closure of the Rafah border crossing.
The attack was the deadliest on security forces since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in mid-2013.
Mona Barhuma, a local activist, said that around 1,200 families in the area had been notified to clear out.
She added that North Sinai’s governor had told her in a phone call that a provincial official with 10 million Egyptian pounds (Dh5.1 million) had been sent to the area to offer urgent compensation.
The evacuated houses will be erased to allow the army to operate freely against suspected Islamist insurgents, according to Egyptian media.
Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sisi has vowed to take “firm” steps near the border with the Islamist-controlled Gaza against militants, who have claimed responsibility for several of the deadly assaults against security forces since Mursi’s ouster. Al Sissi has accused unnamed foreign powers of involvement in the latest assault.
Egyptian media has frequently accused Hamas, which rules Gaza, of meddling in Egypt’s affairs, an accusation denied by the Palestinian Islamist movement that is an offshoot of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
