CAIRO (Reuters) – New aid flights arrived in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, where relief materials are being held until a deal is reached for their delivery to the nearby Gaza Strip, an official said. Red Crescent official and a humanitarian volunteer.
Egypt says its side of the Rafah border crossing, which connects the Sinai to the Gaza Strip, remains open, although traffic has been disrupted for several days due to Israeli bombing on the Palestinian side of the border.
Two Egyptian security sources said the planned evacuation of some people in Gaza with foreign passports had been delayed due to the lack of a negotiated deal with Israel and the United States to send aid to the enclave.
A senior US State Department spokesman said the United States informed its citizens that they could approach the border crossing, following talks with Egypt, Israel and Qatar aimed at opening it.
Washington has been in contact with Palestinian-Americans inside Gaza, some of whom expressed a desire to leave through Rafah, but it was unclear whether the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas would allow access to the crossing, a senior Department of Defense official said earlier. State.
Egypt has been beefing up security on its side of the border, including moving concrete barriers, but reports that troops were sealing the crossing were incorrect, said a third Egyptian security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Rafah border crossing is the main exit point for the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade on the enclave, controlling the movement of goods and people since Hamas took control in 2007.
The Israeli military spokesman said Saturday that the border remains closed and that any crossing into Egypt must be coordinated with Israel.
Two aid flights, including one from Turkey, have landed at Al Arish airport in the Sinai, about 45 kilometers from the border with Gaza, bringing the total number of planes that have arrived this week with aid humanitarian aid for Gaza amounts to at least five, according to the Red Cross official and the humanitarian volunteer.
The World Health Organization said it sent a plane with trauma medications and medical supplies.
“Every hour that these supplies remain on the Egyptian side of the border, more girls and boys, women and men, especially the vulnerable or disabled, will die,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; writing by Aidan Lewis; editing in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)
Source: Ambito
