5 4 Khuza'a village and the area of the [now ruined] Pales�nian airport, Dahaniya) while the Egyp�an army was deployed in the area north of Gaza City, including the village of Dayr al-Sudan (where Moshav Ne�v Ha-Asara is today). This village, Dayr al-Sudan, served as a Bri�sh Military camp during WWI, as it made its way through the coastal plain from the direc�on of Egypt to conquer the Land of Israel. A�er WWII, the Arabs of the region se�led there, just like the Arab refugees from the south of the country se�led in three other Bri�sh camps in the Gaza Strip: Al-Bureij, al-Mawasi, and Nuseirat. Among the builders of the Bri�sh military camp in Dayr al-Sudan, were Jewish engineers, and it turns out that they knew something the Egyp�ans who camped there did not: That in this very place there was one of the richest and most prolific aquifers in this otherwise arid region. These engineers gave this informa�on to the delega�on who conducted the armis�ce talks in Rhodes, Greece, and once the discussion began, Israel's representa�ves demanded, among other things, the Egyp�an army's withdrawal from Dayr al-Sudan. The Egyp�an representa�ves did not know the reason for that demand, but realized that if the representa�ves of the young state are so keen on the Dayr al-Sudan territory, they must have good reason for it, so they insisted on keeping it under their control. Egypt had another pain point in the southern Gaza Strip. The Egyp�ans feared that the IDF would replicate its success in the Faluja pocket (the current region of Kiryat Gat), where an en�re Egyp�an brigade was besieged, and would cut off the Egyp�an forces in the Rafah area from the Strip. The Egyp�ans wanted to keep the IDF away from Rafah, southward. And so, during the Rhodes nego�a�ons, the Egyp�ans agreed to withdraw from the Dayr al-Sudan area and set the borderline from today's Erez checkpoint in a straight line to the seashore, while Israel vacated the Khuza'a and Abbasan areas and handed them over to Egypt. And that formed the Khan Yunis and Rafah 'belly.' This is how the border between Israel and Egypt was established in the Gaza Strip, the only place that deviated from the recognized interna�onal border between Israel and Egypt .12 Chapter One | The Geographic-Physical Structure of the Gaza Strip
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=