Security sources stated that Egypt sent about 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers to northeastern Sinai during the past two weeks as part of a series of measures to enhance security on its border with Gaza.

Egyptian security sources indicated that since October 7, Egypt has built a concrete border wall up to six meters long and topped with barbed wire, built barriers, and strengthened surveillance on border sites.

The deployment of Egyptian forces came before the expansion of Israeli military operations towards the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, which increased Egyptian fears of the possibility of forcing Palestinians seeking safety to leave the Strip en masse.

Israeli warplanes bombed Rafah, adjacent to the Egyptian border, on Friday, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the army and the Ministry of Defense to submit a plan to evacuate civilians from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu's request comes amid Western and Egyptian warnings of the danger of Israel carrying out large-scale operations in Rafah, which is sheltering hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes as a result of the war on the Strip.

In this context, the United States warned, on Thursday, that any Israeli military operation in Rafah, “without planning or with little thought,” would be a “disaster.”

The US State Department said, “We will not support doing something like this without serious and reliable planning as it concerns more than a million people sheltering there, and also without considering its implications for humanitarian aid and the safe departure of foreigners.”

The war in Gaza entered its 126th day, as Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, witnessed violent bombardment, coinciding with warnings of a disastrous Israeli military operation in this area, to which more than half of Gaza’s population was displaced.