Egypt is building a miles-wide buffer zone and wall along its border with Gaza, new satellite images from Maxar Technologies show.
Pictures taken in the past five days show that a large portion of Egyptian land between the road and the Gaza border has been bulldozed.
When the buffer zone is completed – which extends from the end of the Gaza border to the Mediterranean Sea – it will swallow the Rafah border crossing complex between Egypt and Rafah.
On the actual border, multiple cranes were seen placing parts of the wall.
Additional satellite images reviewed by CNN show that bulldozers arrived at the site on February 3, and that initial excavations in the buffer zone began on February 6.
There has been a significant spike in excavation work in the past five days.
Videos published by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights show the construction of the border wall, which it said would be 5 meters (16 feet) high.
The organization, which describes itself as a non-governmental human rights group, said it was informed by two local contractors that the border wall was built on the orders of the Egyptian Armed Forces. CNN has contacted the Egyptian government for comment.
The construction comes amid fears of worsening the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, causing thousands of deaths and a mass exodus of Palestinians across the Egyptian border.
All eyes are on Rafah, located along the new buffer zone, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are sheltering in a huge tent city.
Despite international pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israeli forces would enter Rafah. Many fear that military action in the refugee tent city could lead to a mass exodus, but it could also lead to the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Netanyahu continues to attack Egypt for not closing the Philadelphia Corridor – the strip of land between Egypt and Gaza and the only non-Israeli-controlled border in the Strip. Netanyahu said that Israel would not consider the war over until it was closed.
