CAIRO (AFP) — Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip may be a thorn in Israel's side, but the embattled territory has for decades also been a headache for Egypt, which fears once more becoming its de facto master.
"Egypt will not fall into this Israeli trap," Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak said at the start of the Jewish state's 10-day-old offensive on the Mediterranean coastal strip of 1.5 million Palestinians.
While blaming Gaza militants' rockets for provoking the Israeli onslaught, Egypt believes Israel has a secret plan to split Gaza from the occupied West Bank and leave Egypt with responsibility for the smaller Palestinian enclave.
"Egypt rejects this plan," said Mubarak, who is blamed by many for failing to completely open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, the only one to bypass Israel.
Egypt says to do so would let Israel shrug off any responsibility for the territory, which has been at the crossroads of Egypt's relations with the Palestinian people since Israel was created in 1948.
Around 180,000 of the Palestinians who were kicked out of their homes or fled former British-mandated Palestine during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war sought refuge in the strip, which fell under Egyptian administration at the end of the war.
Egypt did not want to annex the territory and did not offer Egyptian citizenship to its Palestinian inhabitants. But it did host many Palestinian students, including future Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat.
Egypt had control of the Gaza Strip almost continuously until Israel invaded and occupied it in 1967, except for a few months during the 1956 Suez Crisis when Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt.
Arab nationalist leader and future Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser was put in an awkward situation by becoming responsible for the turbulent Gaza Strip after his 1952 revolution.
The Egyptian army was hit several times by gunfire from Palestinian demonstrations organised by nationalist leaders and sought to limit to some extent Palestinian incursions into Israel.
In February 1955, Israeli troops carried out an attack on an Egyptian army base in Gaza, killing 36 soldiers and two civilians, violating the 1948 armistice and causing Nasser to change policy.
In response, Nasser organised and armed Fedayeen fighters who launched commando raids on Israel.
In 1967, Israel unleashed a pre-emptive attack on Egypt, starting the Six Day War during which it conquered much of the territory it occupies today as well as the Gaza Strip, from which it did not withdraw settlers until 2005.
After Israel's Gaza withdrawal, Egypt found itself in an uneasy position, refusing to become the strip's master but by necessity playing a key role in guaranteeing the security of its own northeastern border.
Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006, but was boycotted by much of the West for not recognising Israel, which further restricted supplies to Gaza.
In June 2007, Egypt was taken by surprise when Hamas violently evicted the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, becoming de facto masters of the enclave but not of its land or sea borders or airspace.
"The dread of an Islamist state on its doorstep, influenced by Damascus and Tehran, with the terrorist risk and (Hamas) links with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, became an unacceptable reality for Cairo," said Imad Gad of Cairo's Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies.
Subsequent developments reinforced Egyptian fears: persistent tensions on the border where many thousands of needy Gazans broke through in January 2008, the failure of inter-Palestinian dialogue in November and now Israel's war.
"Clearly for Egypt, Hamas is acting under (foreign) influence and bears a heavy responsibility," said Gad, adding that Egypt's fear now is of the war sending thousands of refugees onto Egyptian soil.
As if to back up Egypt's fears, former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton called on Monday for Egypt to take over the Gaza Strip and Jordan the Israeli occupied West Bank.
"Without a larger Egyptian role, Gaza will not, and perhaps cannot, achieve the minimal stability necessary for economic development," the conservative wrote in the Washington Post as the Israeli military tightened its deadly grip on the territory.
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