“A first group of people with foreign passports will cross the Rafah terminal towards Egypt on Wednesday,” said an official from the authorities in charge of this border post with Gaza, which has been bombed relentlessly by Israel since the start of the war against Hamas , told AFP.
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This official, who wished to remain anonymous, did not provide further information on the number of foreigners affected or when they crossed the border.
According to foreign law firms, on Wednesday nationals of 44 countries and 28 foreign agencies, organizations or NGOs are in the Gaza Strip, where 2.4 million residents have to survive under bombardments, without water, without electricity, without telephone or internet and almost without food “complete siege” imposed by Israel after 16 years of blockade.
On Wednesday morning, intelligence-linked Egyptian televisions in Rafah on the Egyptian side showed live a number of ambulances entering the terminal, while 81 injured Palestinians were to be transferred to Egyptian hospitals on Wednesday, according to Egyptian and Palestinian officials.
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007, more than 8,500 people were killed and thousands more injured (more than 1,400 dead) in Israeli bombings in retaliation for the bloody Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
A medical official from the Egyptian town of Al-Arich, about 40 kilometers west of Rafah, told AFP on Tuesday on condition of anonymity that “a 1,300 square meter field hospital has been built in Cheikh Zoueid, about 10 kilometers west of Rafah.” . .
On Tuesday, an AFP photographer saw several Egyptian ambulances near the terminal, while tanks could be seen along the border.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller reported “very good progress” in Washington on Tuesday evening on the issue of possible passage through Rafah for Americans and dual nationals trapped under bombings in Gaza.