Gaza officials and two Egyptian security sources said Cairo was moving to prevent a mass exodus from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai Peninsula, while Israeli shelling on Tuesday closed the Rafah crossing, the only exit crossing from the territory to Egypt that Israel does not control.
The two Egyptian security sources said Israel's attack on Gaza was worrying Cairo, which has called on Israel to open a safe passage for civilians to leave the enclave instead of encouraging them to flee towards Sinai.
Security sources said the Rafah border crossing remained closed on Wednesday morning after Israeli military planes flew near it overnight.
The crossing was hit by an airstrike yesterday, the third in less than 24 hours, and witnesses told AFP that Egyptian employees at the crossing were evacuated, while "dozens of Palestinian families" who tried to cross towards Gaza were returned to the Egyptian city of al-Arish.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military amended a recommendation from one of its spokesmen advising Palestinians fleeing its air strikes in the Gaza Strip to head to Egypt.
This comes in conjunction with rising expectations that Israel will launch a ground operation on the Gaza Strip, and news that the United States is working with other countries to establish a humanitarian corridor through Egypt to evacuate Palestinians and citizens with American citizenship as a result of those expectations.
Ahmed Salem of the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights said the Egyptian army had taken up new positions near the border and was patrolling the area.
Egypt's North Sinai governor's office said it met with local authorities on Monday to draw up a contingency plan for any crises arising from events in Gaza.
Ambulances have been deployed in Sinai in anticipation of possible evacuations from Gaza, but there has been no sign so far of large concentrations of Palestinians at the Rafah crossing other than departures scheduled until Tuesday.
The U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs said about 800 people left Gaza through the Rafah crossing, and about 500 entered, but the crossing remained closed to the movement of goods.
The Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli siege for more than 15 years, has been subjected to continuous Israeli bombardment following the surprise and unprecedented resistance attack last Saturday, which has so far resulted in the death of more than a thousand Palestinians and 5,1200 wounded, while <>,<> Israelis were killed in the Al-Aqsa flood operation and more than two thousand were wounded.
Rafah is the only crossing point available to Gaza's estimated 2.3 million residents. The rest of the Strip is surrounded by Israel and the sea. Since May 2018, Egypt has left the Rafah crossing open most of the time after years of near-permanent closure.