Yet this time he has barked up the wrong tree, making false claims about Egypt’s stand on Israel’s systematically genocidal war in Gaza and its willingness to provide all possible assistance to the Palestinian people.
Instead of heeding the whole world’s warnings that he must immediately stop his ongoing military campaign aimed at wiping out Gaza City, where more than a million Palestinians live, forcing them to evacuate towards alleged “humanitarian zones” built by the Israeli Occupation Army, he shockingly blamed Egypt for allegedly not allowing Palestinians into its territory. Shamelessly he claimed that this violated the Palestinians’ “human right” to choose where to live. How far more insane could Israeli discourse be?
To start with, nearly every country in the world, including many of Israel’s historically close allies, have warned Netanyahu that he should not add to the tremendous suffering Palestinians have been facing over the past two years by forcing them to evacuate yet again from one gutted area to another. Israel’s barbaric strategy has been tried several times in the name of achieving an “ultimate” victory over Hamas. If this were a matter of Palestinian will and choice, an obvious right he has been deliberately denying the Palestinian people for 23 months is the choice not to die — let alone leave their homeland.
When the second temporary truce was reached between Hamas and Israel one day before US President Donald Trump took office on 20 January, it was a breathtaking scene to watch hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including the elderly, women and children, waiting for the deadline set by the two sides to start returning to their towns and cities in north Gaza, even as they knew their homes had been levelled. They returned home on foot, walking for hours because the Israeli Occupation Army would not allow vehicles to use the main route that connects the southern and northern parts of the Strip. Yet that did not affect their joy or eagerness to celebrate returning to their homes instead of being squeezed into inhumane tents in central and southern Gaza. At that time, Israel was already in control of Gaza City and claimed, as it did in cities in the north, that it was cleared of Hamas fighters and military infrastructure.
Yet what was even more astonishing about Netanyahu’s lies, told in an interview with a little known media outlet last week, was his refusal to acknowledge that Palestinians were not fleeing Gaza City of their own free will, and were not given any “choices” in the first place. The whole world has been watching live on television how Israel has intentionally been starving the Palestinian people for over six months, preventing the entry of much needed food, fuel and medicine. The scenes of the few high-rise buildings in Gaza City collapsing in a few seconds after being hit by Israeli missiles confirm that Netanyahu and his extremist cabinet are certainly not making the evacuation of Gaza City a matter of choice. Those high-rise buildings, reaching 15-16 floors, housed hundreds of Palestinian families who lost their homes in similar Israeli shelling over the past two years. Hundreds of tents erected near the buildings Palestinians call “towers” were also set ablaze, depriving Palestinians of one of their most precious belongings in this war and forcing them to sleep in open air because they couldn’t afford to buy a new tent as Israel has barred their entry into Gaza.
With no food, electricity or working hospitals, Netanyahu is carrying out a deliberate plan to make life unbearable for all of Gaza’s residents. Despite public statements denying that Israel planned to “empty” Gaza, as Netanyahu claimed, all Israeli actions on the ground prove that the forced eviction of Palestinians towards Egypt has been a key Israeli strategy since the beginning of this war. Whatever spin the Israeli premier tries to use in order to justify this war crime, calling it “voluntary evacuation” or “temporary relocation,” Palestinians and the whole world can only see the current Israeli policy as an obvious plan to enforce a second Nakba on the Palestinians living in Gaza, reminding them of the origins of their ongoing suffering when Israel was first created in 1948.
Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty rightly described as “nonsense” Netanyahu’s recent statements directing blame at Egypt for increasing the suffering of Palestinians by keeping its side of the border with Gaza in Rafah closed. He insisted that forcing Palestinians to head south into Egypt, displacing more than 2.4 million people, was a “red line” that Egypt will never allow Israel to cross. He also insisted that Egypt will never be party to any plot to liquidate the Palestinian cause and terminate the Palestinians’ legitimate right to their own independent state.
Israeli commentators and a few remaining sane politicians were among the first to warn Netanyahu that he was playing with fire when he directed blame at Egypt and sought to provoke the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. No one can deny that, without this historic step, which Egypt took in 1979, no Arab country could have made peace or considered normalising relations with Israel. Those Israeli commentators noted that while Netanyahu bragged about Israel’s involvement in wars over seven fronts, he should have prioritised ending those wars before considering opening a new front, this time with the largest and most populous Arab country, whose army remains intact and at full alert.
Netanyahu’s irresponsible lies came at a time when Egypt was working relentlessly with Qatar in order to reach a new temporary ceasefire agreement that would open the door to negotiations on a permanent end to the war, an Israeli pull-out from Gaza and the creation of a new Palestinian entity to run Gaza during the reconstruction period. Netanyahu made his ridiculous claim about Egypt closing its border not just to carry out his plot to forcibly evict Palestinians, but also because he does not want to end the war in Gaza in the first place. Instead of taking seriously the Egyptian-Qatari proposal accepted by Hamas on 18 August, he opted for opening a confrontation with Egypt while at the same time expanding the military campaign against Gaza City, killing dozens of Palestinians daily with no mercy.
Since President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi took office in 2014, he has been very careful not to drag Egypt into any military adventures, aware that maintaining peace in the region was key to carrying out his ambitious plans for economic development and attracting investments. But this does not mean compromising Egypt’s national security or its historic role in support of the just cause of the Palestinian people over the past eight decades.
After nearly two years of war crimes and vulgar twisting of facts, there is probably no one in the world who will believe or trust a single word the current, extremist Israeli government utters. The only hope is that Israel’s closest ally, US President Trump, will play a positive role in restraining this irresponsible, fanatical government, and remind Netanyahu of the red lines that cannot be crossed. Provoking Egypt by making false claims about its very clear stands since this horrific genocide began does not bode well for any party involved.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: