Israel will authorize, this Wednesday, October 15, the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to allow the transit of humanitarian aid, reports Israeli public radio and television KAN.
With this reopening, “600 trucks of humanitarian aid will be transported (Wednesday) to the Gaza Strip by the UN, approved international organizations, the private sector and donor countries,” the media indicates on its website without citing sources.
This measure is being loudly demanded by the UN and major aid NGOs as the Gaza Strip faces a terrible humanitarian crisis more than two years after the start of the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel.
In late August, the United Nations declared famine zones in the small coastal territory, which Israel disputes.
Stage of the American peace plan
KAN specifies that this reopening of Rafah after the passage of aid, decided by the “political level”, occurs after the handover by Hamas of four new hostage remains on Tuesday night within the framework of the ceasefire agreement with Israel sponsored by US President Donald Trump.
The agreement provided that Hamas would hand over to Israel all the hostages still held in Gaza, alive and dead, within a maximum period of 72 hours after the entry into force of the truce, that is, no later than midnight. local time (i.e. 11am in Paris).
But if the Palestinian Islamist movement released all the hostages who were still alive in time (that is, 20 people), on Tuesday afternoon it handed over to Israel only eight remains of the 28 hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
Accusing Hamas of buying time and delaying the process, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of Internal Security and far-right figure, called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday afternoon to simply cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza.
But according to information published by KAN, the decision to reopen Rafah for aid was made after Israel was informed of Hamas’s intention to return four more remains on Wednesday, something the Islamist movement had not yet publicly confirmed as of early morning.
Source: BFM TV
