The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, assured this Sunday that the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, “will open” to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid destined for the Palestinians surrounded in that enclave.
“Rafah will open,” Blinken said, speaking to journalists who accompanied him after meeting Egyptian President Abdelfatah al-Sisi in Cairo.
“We are defining, in cooperation with the UN, Egypt, Israel and others, a mechanism to bring aid to those who need it,” said the head of US diplomacy, in a statement released by the State Department.
The United States had reached an agreement with Egypt, Israel and Qatar to bring in hundreds of foreigners and Palestinians with passports from other countries on Saturday, including American and European citizens.
However, after the announcement of the agreement, the Egyptian authorities announced that they would not authorize the entry into their country of foreigners from Gaza, if humanitarian aid for the 2.2 million people crammed into their country was not previously allowed into their country. that poor Palestinian territory. ., since 2007 controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas.
Humanitarian aid, including medicines for hospitals in the Gaza Strip, now waits to be authorized to cross from Egypt to that enclave through the Rafah crossing, the only access not controlled by Israel and that connects it with the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
As the US, Canada and other countries attempt to expel their citizens from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Armed Forces appear to be preparing for a ground offensive, although the exact date of that operation is not yet known.
However, Israeli soldiers are massed near the border with the Gaza Strip and the government has issued an ultimatum to the 1.1 million Palestinians living in the north of the enclave to move south, an action condemned. vehemently by the Arab community and the UN.
Israel has been on high alert since October 7, when Palestinian fighters from the Islamist movement Hamas attacked the south of the country on several fronts from the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and capturing another 155. , held in captivity in Gaza and some of them died, according to Hamas, by Israeli bombings.
It was an offensive supported by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and the Palestinian branch of Islamic Jihad.
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas – a group classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel – and on which Israel imposed a total siege, cutting off the supply of water, fuel and electricity, strong Israeli retaliation killed even There are already more than 2,670 people, including more than 700 children, and at least 9,600 were injured.
Source: TSF
