Only Egyptian citizens with Egyptian parents will be allowed to own land in Sinai, Major General Abdallah Abdel Ghany said on Tuesday, the vice president of the Armed Forces’ projects department.
Speaking to the Shura Council’s Arab Affairs, Foreign Affairs and National Security Committee, Abdel Ghany also said that Egypt rejects any conditional foreign aid for the development of Sinai.
Sinai was occupied by Israel in 1967 and recovered by Egypt in 1982 in a peace treaty following the 1973 war.
In the past, Egyptian citizens were not allowed to own land in Sinai. They only had the right to use land on a usufruct basis for a specific period of time.
Sinai, which lies between the Gulf of Suez in the west and the Gulf of Aqaba in the east, with Israel and the Gaza Strip in the middle, was the scene of three wars in 1956 against Great Britain, France and Israel, and against Israel alone in 1967 and 1973.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
