Israel's 'concept paper' suggests expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt's Sinai

An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt's Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from Palestine and worsening tensions with Cairo.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a “concept paper.”

But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian concerns that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

“We are against transfer to any place, in any form, and we consider it a red line that we will not allow to be crossed," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said of the report. “What happened in 1948 will not be allowed to happen again."

A mass displacement, Abu Rudeineh said, would be “tantamount to declaring a new war.” So far more than 8,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, have been killed since Israel initiated a full-scale offensive in Gaza since Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel.

Document suggests permanent tent city in Sinai

The document is dated Oct.13 and it was first published by Sicha Mekomit, a local news site. In its report, the Intelligence Ministry — a junior ministry that conducts research but does not set policy — offered three alternatives "to effect a significant change in the civilian reality in Gaza in light of the Hamas crimes that led to the Sword of Iron war.”

The document proposes moving Palestinian population in Gaza to tent cities in northern Sinai of Egypt, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor.

A security zone would be established inside Israel to block the displaced Palestinians from entering. The report did not say what would become of Gaza once its population is cleared out.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. But Egypt has made clear throughout this latest conflict that it is completely against the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Egypt has long concerned that Israel wants to force a permanent expulsion of Palestinians into its territory, as happened during the war surrounding Israel's independence.

Egypt ruled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when Israel occupied the territory, along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The vast majority of Gaza's population are the descendants of Palestinian refugees uprooted from Israel's occupation.

Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el Sisi, has said a mass influx of refugees from Gaza would eliminate the Palestinian cause, warning that such a move would drag Cairo into a war with Israel.

'Concept paper'

At first glance, this proposal “is liable to be complicated in terms of international legitimacy,” the document acknowledges. “In our assessment, fighting after the population is evacuated would lead to fewer civilian casualties compared to what could be expected if the population were to remain.”

An Israeli official familiar with the document said it isn't binding and that there was no substantive discussion of it with security officials.

Netanyahu’s office called it a “concept paper, the likes of which are prepared at all levels of the government and its security agencies."

“The issue of the ‘day after’ has not been discussed in any official forum in Israel, which is focused at this time on destroying the governing and military capabilities of Hamas,” the prime minister’s office said.

The document dismisses the two other options: reinstating the occupied West Bank-based Palestinian national Authority as the sovereign in Gaza or supporting a local regime.

Among other reasons, it rejects them as unable to deter attacks on Israel.

The reinstatement of the Palestinian Authority would be “an unprecedented victory of the Palestinian national movement, a victory that will claim the lives of thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers, and does not safeguard Israel’s security,” the document says.