Egypt has begun demolishing homes along its side of the border with the Gaza Strip, telling residents they have 48 hours to leave.
They say a buffer zone is needed to prevent weapons being smuggled from Gaza into Egypt's increasingly lawless Sinai region.
Homes are being reduced to rubble as part of Egypt's plan to build a so-called "buffer zone" between itself and Gaza.
The plan includes the demolition of up to 800 homes and follows a wave of deadly attacks in the Sinai region, including a suicide bombing last week which killed 30 soldiers..
Egyptian media reports have accused Gaza's Hamas administration of aiding militants in Sinai - which Hamas denies.
Speaking two days after the attack, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi accused unidentified "external forces" of being involved.
"Let me tell you first of all that there are external motives for it, outside support was given to those who undertook this operation against the Egyptian army. Why? This was done to break the will of Egypt and the Egyptians. This was done to break the will of the army."
Egyptian officials want to create a 500 metre-wide buffer along about ten kilometres of the border with Gaza.
Sinai's governor says residents will be compensated for their lost homes.
A resident of Rafah in Gaza, Jamal Salah, says Palestinians are hearing lots of explosions on the border.
"We hear everyday explosions near the border. They evict the residents who live on that side,. They are trying to make it an isolated area. They explode buildings; they do not let anyone there. They explode the area and evict the people from their homes."
In addition to the buffer zone, Egypt has indefinitely closed the Rafah crossing, the only non-Israeli passage for Gazans.
Gaza resident Abdel Kareem Abu Ouf says he's puzzled by the move because Egyptians and Palestinians have always had good relations.
"A buffer zone is just a plot against the Palestinian people. We are brothers with the Egyptians and we do not interfere in their border."
Egyptian security forces have previously destroyed about 200 homes on the border after discovering entrances inside to smuggling tunnels leading into the Gaza Strip.
Residents of Sinai, which receives little support from the Egyptian government, say they use the tunnels to smuggle goods into Gaza, and rely on the smuggling business for their livelihoods.
But Egyptian security forces see them as a threat to security and regularly destroy them.
The Egyptian government has ramped up security operations in the Sinai region, after a surge of violence, sparked by the downfall of President Mohamed Morsi in July.
Egypt's army accuses Hamas militants of staging a series of joint attacks with hardline Islamists in North Sinai
The Sinai militants expanded into a security vacuum that emerged after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011.
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