Video shows Egyptian soldiers assaulting Palestinian boy on border with Gaza

A video showing a violent attack on a Palestinian boy fleeing the Israeli war on Gaza by Egyptian soldiers has triggered outrage across Egypt.

In the video in question, several Egyptian army soldiers are seen beating up a teenage boy believed to have attempted to illegally cross into Egypt. 

One Egyptian soldier told his colleagues as he attacked the boy: "Let me teach the kid a lesson." The dialect of the soldier in the video seemed to be Egyptian Arabic; but the timing or the exact location of the incident remains unclear. Neither is the identity or the nationality of the boy.

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EGYPT ATTACKS CHILD FROM GAZA

New footage shows Egyptian Soldiers beating up a young Palestinian child who managed to escape Gaza, into Egypt

What do you think of this? pic.twitter.com/vyQkVVQkwP

— Alex Barnicoat (@mrbarnicoat) May 8, 2024

The New Arab could not independently verify the video's authenticity and the Egyptian military has not yet officially commented on the alleged incident. 

Israel's war on Gaza has so far claimed the lives of nearly 35000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, since it erupted in October last year, with many of the distressed Palestinian population now on the verge of famine.

Activists have recently urged Egypt to take military action against Israel, especially after the Israeli army had, earlier this week, seised control of the Rafah Border Crossing, following ground operations in eastern Rafah City in Gaza.

Rafah sits on Gaza's border with Egypt, where there are growing concerns that Israel could use its war to displace Palestinians across the border into North Sinai, a scheme vehemently rejected by Cairo.

The Egyptian government has repeatedly warned against any Israeli ground attacks on the Palestinian Rafah City for being "a direct threat to Egypt's national security."

The border crossing with Egypt is Gaza’s only connection to the outside world through which the besieged enclave receives humanitarian aid.

Egypt and Israel have imposed a strict blockade on Gaza since 2007 after the Palestinian Hamas faction assumed power following clashes with the rival Fatah faction that rules the occupied West Bank.

It was nearly a decade later when Hamas dropped its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed group in Egypt since 2014, that the Egyptian regime softened its stance towards the Palestinian faction.