Just 15km from Rafah, the war-torn Gaza city packed with desperate and hungry Palestinians, a new city is planned to rise in Egypt. It will be named after Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian president who for years has helped impose a blockade on the coastal enclave.
Sisi City was announced by businessman and Sinai militia leader Ibrahim al-Organi on Wednesday, and is scheduled to be built on the site of al-Arjaa, a village in southern Rafah adjacent to the Egypt-Israel border.
Organi has been under scrutiny since the Israeli war on Gaza began, due to the exorbitant fees his companies charge Palestinians fleeing the war to Egypt, and to aid trucks entering the enclave.
One of his firms, Hala, may have earned at least $118m from Palestinian refugees in the past three months, Middle East Eye revealed.
Organi is also the owner of construction company Sons of Sinai, which is the main contractor hired by the Egyptian state for housing projects in the peninsula.
At a lavish celebration secured by armed militiamen and attended by several public figures and MPs on Wednesday, Organi was appointed head of the Arab Tribes Union, a new paramilitary entity uniting five tribal groups from across Egypt under one umbrella.
The event was broadcast on Egyptian intelligence-owned TV channels. The Union has been formed to confront “the challenges facing the nation” and respond to “campaigns of lies and rumours”, attendees were told.
Sisi was declared the group’s “honorary president”. Pro-government talk-show host Mostafa Bakry was appointed as spokesperson.
A tribal source who attended the celebration told MEE that the event did not have any official security presence, “not even traffic police”, and that it was secured instead by armed militiamen in pickup trucks, all of whom belong to Organi’s tribe, the Tarabin.
Sinai Bedouin figures carry a banner congratulating Organi on the new city, in front of a poster that says Sisi City, 1 May 2024 (Photo supplied to MEE)
Prior to merging it with the newly declared union, Organi led the Union of Sinai Tribes (UST), a pro-government paramilitary group set up in 2015 to support the Egyptian army in its battles against a local offshoot of the Islamic State (IS). The UST’s mission in Sinai has been unclear since the IS-affiliate group known as the Sinai Province was officially defeated in 2022.
