Rafah (Egypt)

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Rafah (Egypt) (Egypt)
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Location in Egypt

Coordinates: 31 ° 17 ′  N , 34 ° 14 ′  O Rafah ( Arabic رفح, DMG Rafaḥ ) is a city in the Shimal Sina Governorate in the Asian part of Egypt . The city is directly on the border with the Gaza Strip and is the smaller part of a 1982 divided border city, which is separated by the Philadelphi Passage , a demarcation line , with most of the city on the Palestinian side. The only border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is in Rafah. Around 75,000 people live in Rafah, Egypt. According to plans by the Egyptian government, the city is to be completely demolished in order to prevent border smuggling into Gaza.

history

Raphia , as the city was called in the language of ancient Egypt, is first mentioned in an inscription by Pharaoh Sethos I , which dates back to 1303 BC. Chr. Dated. The city was the scene of military conflicts in Egypt several times. On the Palestine campaign of Pharaoh Scheschonq I in 925 BC. Rafah was the first city to be conquered. In 720 BC BC, the Assyrian King Sarrum-ken II triumphed over Egypt here. Rafah was also the scene of the Battle of Raphia between Ptolemy IV and Antiochus III. 217 BC BC, which ended in a victory for the Ptelomeans.

Under Alexander Jannäus Rafah became part of the Jewish Hasmonean Empire in the last century BC , before the area became part of the Roman Empire . During the Byzantine era, Rafah was the seat of a diocese . Until the early Arab period, Rafah was an important trading city where Jewish and Samaritan communities lived.

From the 13th century there was a permanent decline of Rafah, the city was largely abandoned and fell into disrepair. Ottoman records from the 16th century show only 16 taxpayers in Rafah, all of whom were Muslim.

From 1832 to 1840 Rafah was occupied by Egypt under Muhammad Ali Pasha .

In 1917, Rafah , which belongs to the Ottoman Empire, was conquered by the British and was the starting point for the attack on Gaza . The presence of the British military ensured an economic boom in the following years. In 1922 the population of the city had grown again to 600, by the end of the British mandate it rose to 2,500. In the 1940s, an internment camp was operated in Rafah . This camp received special significance as part of Operation Agatha and was therefore chosen as the code name of the Hagana ship Athena .

In the period from the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 to the Six Day War in 1967, the Gaza Strip and with it the city of Rafah as a whole were administered by Egypt , but not annexed. The residents of the Gaza Strip did not receive civil rights from Egypt and thus remained stateless.

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, the entire city of Rafah was occupied by Israeli troops for several months and was under Israeli occupation from 1967 as a result of the Six Day War .

The separation of Rafah into an Egyptian and a Palestinian part as well as the establishment of a border crossing took place in 1982 with the return of the last occupied territories by Israel to Egypt as a result of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty . The entire city had 10,600 inhabitants at that time.

climate

Rafah is located in a Mediterranean climate zone and is agriculturally much more extensively developed on the Egyptian side than on the very densely populated Palestinian side. Mediterranean fruits such as peaches, olives, dates, grapes, citrus fruits, but also apples, strawberries and peppers grow in the fields around Rafah.

The climate is similar to that of other cities in the Levantine Sea , but there is more rainfall. In addition to Alexandria , Abu Qir , Rosetta , Baltim , Kafr el-Dawwar and Mersa Matruh , Rafah is one of the wettest regions in Egypt. The summers are hot and dry, the winters mild and rainy. The daytime temperatures in summer are around 30 ° C and seldom exceed 35 ° C due to the location by the sea. On winter days it is usually mild to cool during the day, with it sometimes getting cold at night and temperatures often dropping below 6 ° C. The precipitation mostly consists of rain with occasional hail and sleet. Snowfall is rare.

Demolition of the city

Smugglers tunnel in Rafah in 2009.

For a long time, the black economy represented an important source of income for the Arab Bedouins. For example, many used a tunnel system to smuggle food, weapons or other goods into Gaza. Most of these tunnels were destroyed by the Egyptian military in 2013 and 2014.

A few days after 33 Egyptian soldiers were killed in northern Sinai by terrorist attacks in Wilayat Sinai in October 2014 , Egypt announced that it would establish a buffer zone in the border area with the Gaza Strip, within which it is believed that most of the tunnels are located. The demolition within these areas should take place for security reasons and to combat the economically damaging smuggling of subsidized gasoline. In the first phase, a 500-meter-wide security strip was set up along the 13.5-kilometer-long border in order to destroy all smuggler tunnels there. 1165 families are affected, whose 820 houses were largely demolished without compensation with one to two days' warning. In a second phase, this buffer zone will be widened to 1000 meters with 1220 houses and over 2000 families. On December 29, 2014, the expansion of the buffer zone to 5 km was announced. At the end of the four-step plan, the entire Egyptian city of Rafah, in which around 75,000 people currently live, should be demolished.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Gil Yaron: Egypt clears smugglers' city to the Gaza Strip. In: Die Welt from January 15, 2015.
  2. Polybios Historien V.79-86; Raphia ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Franciscan Cyberspot @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / 198.62.75.1
  3. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah 1977, p. 150
  4. Gaza Strip: Between Occupation, Withdrawal, and Independence. on: stern.de , November 29, 2004.
  5. http://www.timesofisrael.com/egyptian-army-destroys-13-more-gaza-tunnels/
  6. Egypt may relocate thousands of Bedouin to widen buffer zone near Gaza border , Haaretz . October 26, 2014. 
  7. ^ Palestinian militants from Gaza behind Sinai attacks, Egyptian official says , Haaretz . 
  8. Egypt to expand Gaza buffer zone to 1 km; 12 new tunnel openings found , Haaretz . 18th November 2014. 
  9. Gaza buffer zone to increase to 5km: North Sinai governor , Daily News Egypt. December 29, 2014.