by Our Foreign Desk

HUMAN Rights Watch warned yesterday that Egypt’s military “violated international law” through mass home demolitions and evictions along its Gaza border.

Egypt’s army has created a wide buffer zone in the town of Rafah, where it says tunnels allow in fighters and weapons from Palestine.

“The large-scale destruction of at least 3,255 buildings in Rafah to counter the smuggling tunnels was disproportionate and did not meet Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law or the laws of war,” said the human rights group.

Since July 2013 “the military has arbitrarily razed thousands of homes, destroying entire neighbourhoods and hundreds of acres of farmland,” it said.

“Destroying homes, neighbourhoods, and livelihoods is a textbook example of how to lose a counterinsurgency campaign,” said HRW Middle East and North Africa head Sarah Leah Whitson.

“The Egyptian authorities provided residents little or no warning of the evictions, no temporary housing, mostly inadequate compensation for their destroyed homes — none at all for their farmland.”

The Egyptian government said that its Sinai campaign complied with “international human rights laws.”

It insisted residents along the border had been consulted before work began on the buffer zone and most had demanded, and received, compensation.

“Compensation for private property was dispensed to local residents,” the government said.

Egypt’s official plan for the buffer zone calls for clearing about 30 square miles on the Gaza border, including all of Rafah, a town of about 78,000 people, HRW said.

“The Egyptian army has failed to explain why it cannot use … non-destructive means for detecting and neutralising tunnels,” it said, adding that Egyptian troops had received training from the US army since 2008.

“The US and other Western nations that arm the Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi government look the other way when his forces abuse citizens under the dubious logic that he is aiding the fight against Islamic State,” Ms Whitson said.

The organisation said that video footage showed an US-made M60 tank shelling a building to demolish it.

It called on the US to make sure its weapons aren’t being used in violation of human rights.