CAIRO, Jan. 27 (Aswat Masriya) - "The threat to Egypt’s security is real," Human Rights Watch's (HRW) deputy Middle East director said in a report issued Wednesday; yet added that "the past two years show that the authorities’ heavy-handed response has only led to more division."

HRW's World Report, over-600 pages long, presented an overview of Egypt's human rights situation in 2016, over two years after the military removal of former president Mohamed Mursi after mass protests against his rule.

According to the international watchdog, Egyptian authorities said that they have killed "at least 3,091 terrorists" between January and July 2015.

Authorities have not allowed "independent observers into the conflict area," the report said, referencing the controversial “counterterrorism law” that punishes journalists and others who offer narratives other than the official one on terrorism-related matters.

Egypt’s counterterrorism law was approved by the recently-elected parliament earlier this month. The law, HRW said, has “expanded authorities’ powers,” especially interior ministry's Homeland Security branch. 

The report cites Sinai-residents as saying that the army has killed “an unknown number of civilians.” Authorities have not acknowledged civilian deaths, the report said.

The armed forces also demolished 2,715 buildings bordering the Gaza strip and evicted thousands of families from their homes, the watchdog documented in its report. Egypt said the procedure was meant to create a "buffer zone" to keep weapon smuggling and "terrorists", out.

HRW called the demolitions a violation of "human rights law and possibly the laws of war."

Militant insurgency has heightened in North Sinai, despite Egypt’s "commitment of significant additional forces," the watchdog added.

Outside of Sinai, the report covered issued related to police abuses, including "mounting" enforced disappearances and torture cases, as well as deaths in custody. 

The report also referred to multiple high profile incidents including the one in which Egyptian security forces killed 12 civilians, eight of whom were Mexican tourists, in the Western Desert after mistaking the group for militants.

According to HRW, Egypt's interior ministry announced in October that they arrested almost 12,000 people on terrorism related charges, "adding to the 22,000 people security officials said had already been arrested as of July 2014."

"The actual number is likely higher," the report read, citing the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Right’s which documented 41,000 arrests, indictments, or sentencings between July 2013 and May 2014 alone.

The interior ministry and armed forces could not be immediately reached for comment.

The interior ministry previously stated that there are no "enforced disappearances" in Egypt and that Egypt is signatory to the United Nation’s International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It added that the ministry is combating the impunity of perpetrators of this crime.

A number of policemen have been referred to criminal courts in the past few months, and have been handed prison sentences for transgressing on the rights of citizens, the ministry said.