“Israel is trying to relocate the crossing to another location. We affirm this is a pure Egyptian-Palestinian matter,” Shtayyeh said in a government session.
The Israeli Channel 13 reported on Saturday that the Israeli government is considering relocating the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to the Kerem Shalom area.
Relocating the crossing to the border triangle between Israeli regime-controlled territories, Gaza, and Egypt aims to prevent Cairo from intervening in the management of it, the channel added.
Rafah border crossing is the sole crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Also, according to Israeli media, Egypt has recently communicated forceful messages to Israel to make it clear that spillover of Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Sinai would jeopardize the peace agreement between the two countries.
Israel has launched a deadly offensive on Gaza following an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, killing at least 27,365 Palestinians and injuring 66,630 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
SD/PR
