Suspicion haunts Egypt border residents evicted to create Gaza buffer zone

'Civilians accuse us of being traitors when they learn we are from northern Sinai... Officers treat us badly at security checkpoints,' said one resident whose home was demolished on the Egyptian side of border town of Rafah.

Egyptian soldiers inspect a smuggling tunnel in the divided border town of Rafah, along the border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2014. Egypt is demolishing more than 800 homes in a bid to create a buffer zone aimed at combating militants they say are infiltrating from across the border. Mohamed El Sherbeny/AFP PhotoShow less

EL ARISH, EGYPT// Abu Mahmoud had only eight hours to leave his home on the Egyptian side of the divided Gaza border town of Rafah before authorities began demolishing it to create a buffer zone.

Like those who were displaced with him, he is angry, and says they are often branded as traitors and “terrorists” because they come from the lawless frontier in north Sinai.

Militants have stepped up attacks against troops inside Egypt since the army toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.

The buffer zone with the Palestinian Islamist-controlled enclave is Cairo's latest security measure to stem militants reportedly infiltrating from across the border.

More than 800 homes are being demolished and 1,100 families displaced to build the 500-metre wide and 13.5-kilometre long buffer zone in North Sinai province.

“Civilians accuse us of being traitors when they learn we are from northern Sinai,” said Abu Mahmoud.

“Officers treat us badly at security checkpoints on the road between Cairo and Ismailiya. And we have to submit to body searches when they see that our cars are registered in North Sinai,” he said.

He has now moved with his family to North Sinai’s capital of El Arish, and said people had broken the windows of North Sinai-registered cars in Ismailiya and in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya.

The military began demolishing houses along the border with Gaza in late October after militants killed at least 30 soldiers in a checkpoint attack in North Sinai, a region rocked by insurgency since Mr Morsi was ousted.

Egypt's deadliest militant group, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, claimed the attack and has pledged allegiance to the ISIL group in Iraq and Syria.

This week the group released a video of the October attack which began with a suicide bomber driving a bomb-laden truck into the checkpoint.

The government hopes the buffer zone will isolate the militants who say they attack the security forces in retaliation for the government crackdown on Morsi supporters which has killed at least 1,400 people.

The authorities also hope that the buffer zone will neutralise hundreds of illegal underground tunnels connecting the Egyptian side of Rafah with Gaza.

Such tunnels are often used for smuggling weapons and militants, and the army says it has already destroyed more than 1,600 of them.

The authorities charge that Palestinian militants from Hamas and other groups are helping extremists to fight Egypt’s security forces, which the Palestinian groups deny.

The buffer zone should deal a major blow to the militants, interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif said.

“After the creation of the buffer zone, they are now isolated,” he said.

Abu Mahmoud’s brother, Mohammed, accused Egyptian media of portraying the people of North Sinai negatively by publishing “hate speeches” against them, “as if all the residents of this region are terrorists”.

Although President Abdel Fattah El Sisi himself has apologised to the people displaced by the new buffer zone, and has even promised them compensation, few El Arish residents have any empathy towards those from Rafah.

They believe people from Rafah and other border towns have amassed fortunes by smuggling goods and weapons through the tunnels, especially since Israel imposed a blockade on the Palestinian enclave in 2006.

The government said that those who owned houses where the entrances to such tunnels were discovered will not receive compensation.

* Agence France-Presse