Egyptian Firms Surveyed Rafah Ruins Under Israeli Military Escort for 'Green Rafah' Housing Plan, Sources Say

Egyptian engineers walked the rubble of eastern Rafah this year with Israeli soldiers at their side, surveying ground for a housing project called "Green Rafah," according to two Egyptian sources who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

One source, a senior military official based in North Sinai, said the surveys covered several areas of eastern Rafah and that Israeli army and air force personnel supervised the Egyptian engineering teams from arrival to departure. A second source, an employee of the Organi Group, an Egyptian construction and logistics conglomerate, said the company's management ordered a survey team to Rafah to assess a site for residential buildings and confirmed that Israeli soldiers accompanied the crew throughout.

"The survey of the designated area has already been delivered so that the necessary engineering drawings and studies can be prepared ahead of construction, including rubble removal and land preparation," the Organi Group source told MEE.

The work is taking place on the Israeli-controlled side of the so-called Yellow Line. Rafah, once home to roughly 250,000 Palestinians, has seen at least 80 percent of its buildings demolished since Israel's war on Gaza began, according to prior reporting cited by MEE, leaving almost the entire former population displaced. Video published alongside MEE's report shows the scale of that destruction, the physical backdrop against which the Egyptian survey teams worked.

What the sources claim, and what is confirmed

The North Sinai military source said the planned neighborhood would initially house around 20,000 Palestinians and eventually fall under a multinational force envisioned by the Sharm el-Sheikh ceasefire framework. That source also said debris clearance and construction were likely to start only after Israel's elections, so the project would not affect the vote or be used against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by his opponents. Those two specific claims rest on a single anonymous source and are not independently corroborated.

The Organi Group source went further, describing Green Rafah as intended to fall under international administration, "separating Gaza from Israel." That characterization, too, comes from one source and has not been confirmed by Israeli or Egyptian officials.

What is corroborated: Israeli Army Radio reported in August that Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz had approved infrastructure work in eastern Rafah, including excavation and connections to electricity, water and sewage, for a residential project intended for Palestinians living outside Hamas' control. Palestinian contractors and workers would undergo vetting by Israel's Shin Bet before entering the area, that report said. Netanyahu's office later said Green Rafah was in fact a UAE-backed pilot project already underway for several months, pushing back on parts of the radio report but not denying the project's existence.

Both Egyptian sources said Organi's companies are expected to receive reconstruction contracts assigned to Egypt, with work subcontracted to smaller Egyptian firms. Ibrahim al-Arjani, who leads Organi, is a North Sinai tribal figure with longstanding ties to Egypt's security establishment; companies linked to him have previously controlled exit permits and traveler transport through the Rafah crossing. MEE said it received no response from the Organi Group or Egypt's State Information Service before publication.