The Rafah terminal, which connects the Gaza Strip with Egypt, will reopen on Monday to allow the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals stranded in the small Palestinian territory under siege by Israel since the Hamas attack on October 7 the Hamas government announced.
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That terminal was open for three days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, letting out dozens of wounded Palestinians and hundreds of foreign passport holders before Hamas decided to close it.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, had set as a condition for its reopening an assurance of safe passage for ambulances to Rafah after the deadly Israeli bombing of an ambulance in Gaza City.
Sources within the Hamas government said that the reopening took place after Israel’s consent was obtained for the passage of 30 wounded thanks to Egyptian mediation.
On the Egyptian side of the terminal, ambulances arrived to rescue the injured, witnesses told AFP.
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On Sunday, Washington announced that more than 300 Americans or American residents and their families had been evacuated in Rafah since Wednesday.
Around a hundred Britons were also able to leave the Gaza Strip, the British government announced on Monday.
Egypt pledges to help evacuate “around 7,000” foreigners and dual nationals from the Gaza Strip.
The war, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, has claimed at least 1,400 lives, mostly civilians, according to authorities in Israel, on the day of the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement.
In retaliation for the October 7 attack, Israel declared it wanted to destroy Hamas and is relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip, which has been under complete siege since October 9.
According to the Hamas government, more than 10,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 20,000 injured in the Israeli army’s response to Gaza.