Shaaban Bilal (Cairo)
Yesterday, the Rafah border crossing was unable to receive holders of foreign passports and injured people from Gaza to Egypt, after 3 days of work, as part of an agreement between Egypt and Israel in coordination with the United States to support the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the exit of foreigners, while an official Egyptian source confirmed to “ Al-Ittihad said that there are difficult challenges facing the operations of transporting foreign nationals and injured Palestinians, after ambulances transporting wounded were targeted.
The spokesman for the Rafah crossing on the Palestinian side, Wael Abu Omar, told Al-Ittihad that work at the Rafah border crossing was suspended yesterday, Saturday, after the Israeli army targeted ambulances and prevented the transfer of the wounded from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. He confirmed that no persons holding foreign passports or those injured had passed through the crossing yesterday.
According to Abu Omar, the statistics of the operation of the Rafah land crossing during the past Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday amounted to 1,047 foreigners, 84 wounded, and 65 companions.
More than 730 foreigners were expected to cross through the Rafah crossing yesterday, including 386 Americans, 112 Britons, 77 French, as well as 151 Germans, in addition to 55 Egyptians, as part of a plan to evacuate about 7,000 foreigners from Gaza, holding the nationalities of 60 countries, but the operations stopped. After the bombing of ambulances transporting wounded Palestinians to Egypt last Thursday.
For his part, the Egyptian Minister of Health and Population, Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, announced during a press conference yesterday that his country receives between 40 and 50 cases of infection from Palestinians every day, stressing Egypt’s ability to absorb many times the cases that arrive every day.
Despite the cessation of transfers of foreign nationals and injured people, Egypt announced yesterday the preparation of 50 new aid trucks and convoys in preparation for sending them to the Gaza Strip, amid demands to increase this aid to cover the needs of the Strip.
The source referred to the statements of the Gaza Crossings and Borders Authority about the possibility of halting the procedures for the exit of foreigners from the Rafah crossing to Egypt until the transport of the wounded from the hospitals in the Strip towards the crossing is coordinated.
The Egyptian Minister of Health and Population confirmed that children were received among the wounded Palestinians in Egypt. Minister Abdel Ghaffar said: “We are implementing a strict program to receive wounded Palestinians, noting that there is no restriction on a number for receiving wounded Palestinians.” He stressed that there is complete and unlimited medical support for our Palestinian brothers, noting that about 50 advanced surgical operations have been performed for Palestinians.
Meanwhile, a UN delegation from the United Nations World Food Program arrived yesterday at Al-Arish International Airport in the Egyptian North Sinai Governorate.
Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in North Sinai, said: Upon arriving at the airport, the UN delegation headed to the Egyptian Red Crescent’s warehouses and all the warehouses in which there is humanitarian and medical aid in Al-Arish, where the delegation inspected the warehouses and looked at the humanitarian and medical aid present there, which is scheduled Sent to Gaza later.
Yesterday afternoon, a French aid plane carrying food, medical supplies and water arrived at Al-Arish International Airport in the Egyptian North Sinai Governorate, in preparation for transporting it to the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Zayed said: “The French aid plane has already arrived at Al-Arish Airport, carrying food and medical aid. It is the second plane that the airport received yesterday, and other planes are expected to arrive.” He pointed out that the total number of aircraft received by Al-Arish Airport since the start of the war on Gaza until today has reached 76 aircraft, transporting more than 1,795 tons of various aid, not to mention the humanitarian aid that arrives from Cairo at approximately 4,500 tons. He also noted that, as of yesterday, the number of humanitarian aid trucks that had entered the Gaza Strip had already reached 421 trucks.
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