Egypt offers assistance, but not repayment, as Israeli strikes continue to mount deaths in Gaza

 Egypt offers aid, but does not withdraw, as Israeli attacks on Gaza continue to kill. 

The Israeli leadership has repeatedly called on civilians to flee the area in response to an unprecedented Hamas offensive last weekend that saw Israeli warplanes strike Gaza, killing more than 1,400 people Death had occurred and buildings had been destroyed.

"Get out now," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday, vowing to unleash the full force of Israel's military.

But the only viable exit is to cross the border into Egypt, and that country has firmly closed it as in wartime.

Egyptians are vehemently opposed to allowing Gazans to cross the border, fearing that the country could plunge deeper into crisis – even as Israel moves ahead with a punitive blockade that swiftly turning into a terrible humanitarian crisis.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Tuesday that Egypt echoed long-standing concerns that Israel would somehow seek to provoke a Gaza conflict, Egyptian state media reported . An Egyptian problem too.

Instead, the Egyptians say they will facilitate a humanitarian corridor to get urgently needed aid to Gaza, where Israel has cut off food, fuel and water supplies in what its defense minister called a "total blockade." said- a strategy that aid and humanitarian rights groups have collectively condemned.and condemned as possible war crimes.

However, US officials are pressing civilians to leave Gaza for safety. At a press conference in Israel on Thursday, Secretary of State Anthony J. McCarthy said that he would not be able to do so. Blinken said he has discussed the matter with Israeli officials and hopes to continue in the coming days.

A State Department official said the United States is also consulting with Egypt on possible safe transit between Egypt and Gaza through the Rafah crossing point.

Gaza is a densely packed strip of land about 140 square miles. More than 2 million Palestinians live in the coastal enclave, which has endured a 16-year blockade enforced by Egypt and Israel.

According to the UN, some 340,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza since the new conflict began, including 180,000 under UN sanctions. Several shelters were hit, and UN refugees were injured.

Egypt said it wanted to ease their plight, and on Thursday its foreign ministry asked the country and aid groups to send shipments to El Arish international airport in Egypt's North Sinai region, 35 miles from the border.

Although Egypt says the border remains open, a series of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on Monday and Tuesday effectively closed it. And Israel said Hamas did not release 150 people, including children and adults, it captured during a brutal weekend raid.

"Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be turned on and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli kidnappers return home," Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media on Thursday.

Egypt's position is a reminder of its uniquely nuanced role in Gaza - part border guard, part mediator - which has evolved over decades and is now vulnerable to an unexpected conflagration that has put the entire region on edge.

Egypt has long insisted that Israel must resolve the Palestinian issue within its borders, in order to keep alive its aspirations for a future Palestinian state. “Allowing large numbers of Gazans to cross, even as refugees, would revitalize the idea that the Sinai is an alternative country for Palestinians,” said Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed, a political scientist at Cairo University.

A related situation that worries Egypt is that it could end up as the de facto administrator of Gaza.

Mr Al-Said said Egypt could never accept this.

Still, he said, Egypt could make some concessions, such as allowing stranded foreign nationals or people injured in Gaza to travel through Egypt.

Gaza has always been a headache for Mr. El-Sisi, the trouble spot where his close ties to Israel and the United States rub uncomfortably against the pro-Palestinian views of his own people.

He is also wary of Hamas, the offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that was founded in 1987 at the start of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In 2008, tens of thousands of Palestinians flooded into Egypt after Hamas blew a hole in the Rafah border fence. Then in 2014, during the conflict in Gaza, a year after Mr. El-Sisi ousted the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood leader, Egypt called on Israel to destroy Hamas, Council on Foreign Relations analyst Steven Cook said.

"They told the Israelis to kick down every door in Gaza - to finish them off," he said.

Israel did not go so far as to cooperate with Egypt to destroy a network of tunnels along the border that Palestinians used to smuggle food and other supplies from Egypt and used by Hamas to procure weapons.

Egyptian and Israeli security forces coordinated closely to monitor Gaza, and the Egyptians used strict border controls to allow Gazans to enter Egypt – mostly to study, receive medical treatment or travel to a third country .

During the four most intense conflicts since Hamas seized Gaza in 2007, Egyptians have maintained a particularly tight grip on the border.

But Mr El-Sisi must also be sensitive to a public that believes he should side with the Palestinians.

An Egyptian police officer shot and killed two Israeli tourists and their Egyptian guide at an ancient Roman site in northern Egypt’s Alexandria on Sunday, a day after a Hamas attack in Israel.

An opinion poll released this week by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research found that 82 percent of people believe that the Palestinians have the right to respond violently to Israeli attacks.

To deal with these tensions, Mr. El-Sisi has tried to cast himself as a peace broker. Along with Qatar and Turkey, his government negotiated several cease-fires that helped end previous cycles of violence in Gaza, earning him praise from Western allies such as the United States.

But Egypt's security cooperation with Israel came under strain this week as Mr Netanyahu denied suggestions that Egyptian officials had issued a specific warning to Israel of an impending attack before last weekend.

Yet the biggest test of Mr El-Sisi's approach may be the Israeli invasion of Gaza, which is widely believed to be imminent.

Aid officials say large numbers of Gazans may flee to the Rafah border crossing for refuge, pressuring Egypt to let them cross. And the situation is getting worse by the hour.

Gaza's only power plant shut down on Wednesday after the Egyptian and Israeli blockade disrupted fuel shipments. Speaking from Gaza City, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees said:

Meanwhile, despite Israeli airstrikes, patients are flocking for treatment.

"We are facing a major disaster," said Mr. Abu Hasna.