Egypt has demolished tons of Sinai homes, HRW says

Rights group finds more than 3,000 buildings destroyed within a 12-km. area near Gaza border

CAIRO (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch accused Egypt on Tuesday of mass demolition of homes in the Sinai Peninsula, some of which it said may be illegal, as the military fights an Islamist insurgency there.

The New York-based NGO said demolitions, which have taken place in recent years to create buffer zones on borders such as that with the Gaza Strip, had increased significantly.

They were also being used to punish suspected terrorists and their relatives.

Egypt’s military did not immediately comment on the report. It has rejected previous reports by HRW on Sinai, saying they relied on “undocumented sources.”

Egypt in February launched a highly publicized operation against Islamic State terrorists who have waged years of attacks against security forces and more recently against civilians in which hundreds of people have been killed.

As part of a push against the Islamists, authorities announced they were razing farmland and properties for several kilometers around the town of El-Arish in North Sinai.

After terrorists stepped up their attacks against Egyptian forces in 2013, the military razed an extensive area along the border with Gaza.

HRW said the authorities had demolished more than 3,000 buildings and razed farmland within a 12-km. area along the Gaza border, as well as scores of buildings near El-Arish.

“The total number of buildings demolished so far in 2018 is the largest since the government ordered the eviction of residents from the Rafah buffer zone in October 2014,” it said.

The group also said three witnesses had reported that security forces had destroyed or burned “several buildings” in El-Arish which they said suspects or relatives of terrorists owned.

“The Egyptian Army claims it is protecting people from militants, but it’s absurd to think that destroying homes and displacing lifelong residents would make them safer,” HRW’s Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said.

Reuters could not independently verify HRW’s report. Egypt does not allow international media to travel to North Sinai to report.

Critics say Egypt’s use of conventional military might against terrorists who have hidden out for years in Sinai is unlikely to clear them from the vast region, which lies on the Red Sea between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba and is separated from mainland Egypt by the Suez Canal.