Egypt announced “permanent” access for aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing. “Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and US President Joe Biden agreed on a permanent delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing,” said presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy, without giving a date. for a possible start of deliveries.
After a telephone conversation with Sisi, Biden announced that he had promised to allow “up to 20 trucks” to “initially” cross the previously closed border crossing. Further deliveries could follow after that, it was said.
Israel does not want to block aid deliveries
Israel had previously stated that it would allow aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip that were initially blocked. Israel will not oppose Biden’s call to provide food, water and medicine to civilians in the southern Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
It would allow aid deliveries from Egypt “as long as these deliveries do not reach Hamas,” he said. However, no aid deliveries to the population of the Gaza Strip will begin from Israeli territory until Hamas, which governs the country, releases all of its approximately 200 hostages who were kidnapped from Israel.
Thousands of deaths so far
Hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid wait at the Rafah border crossing to take aid to the Gaza Strip. So far, the only crossing not controlled by Israel has not been opened by the Egyptian side. One of the reasons given was the bombing of the border crossing by the Israeli army.
Hamas killed around 1,400 people in a major attack on Israel on October 7 and kidnapped around 200 others to the Gaza Strip.
Israel then isolated Palestinian territory, interrupted deliveries of fuel, food and water and launched counterattacks. According to local authorities, around 3,300 people were killed in Israeli counterattacks in the Gaza Strip.