Egypt will help evacuate “around 7,000” foreigners and dual nationals from the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, a day after the first evacuations from the south of the Palestinian territory.
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In a meeting with foreign diplomats, Deputy Foreign Minister Ismail Khairat said Egypt was preparing to “facilitate the reception and evacuation of foreign citizens from Gaza through the Rafah crossing,” adding that there were “around 7,000” and “more than 60”. Nationalities.
The ministry does not mention the timetable for the Egyptian evacuation plan.
Since October 7, the Gaza Strip has been under relentless Israeli shelling in response to an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The humanitarian situation there is described as catastrophic by the United Nations and the NGOs present.
On Wednesday, 76 wounded Palestinians were evacuated in ambulances and 335 foreigners and binationalists in buses from Gaza to Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, a first since the start of the war.
Among the foreigners are 31 Austrians, four Italians, five French and a few Germans, the number of which was not mentioned.
A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said Americans had also left Gaza, without giving their number.
More than 8,700 people, including 3,648 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, according to the health ministry of Hamas, the movement that controls the territory.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack, according to authorities.