Humanitarian aid is being gathered by volunteers from the Resala charitable group in preparation for delivery to Gaza as a convoy of supplies travels to Rafah on Egypt’s eastern border with the Gaza Strip.
In order to facilitate humanitarian access, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Saturday that medical supplies for 300,000 people in the Gaza Strip had been transferred to an airport in Egypt close to the Palestinian enclave.
The WHO states that the equipment can be provided as soon as humanitarian access is established at the southern border crossing with Egypt at Rafah.
According to a WHO statement, a plane carrying 78 m3 of equipment from the UN agency’s logistics hub in Dubai landed at El-Arich airport in Egypt.
Egypt claims that their side of the Rafah crossing, which connects the Sinai Peninsula with the Gaza Strip, is still open, despite the fact that Israeli bombardments on the Palestinian side of the border have caused traffic to be suspended for several days.
The rumours that the Egyptian security forces were closing off the crossing were untrue, according to an Egyptian security source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Egyptian security forces have been beefing up security on their side of the border, including shifting concrete obstacles.
The bridge serves as the principal point of non-Israeli egress for the 2.3 million people who live in the Gaza Strip. Since Hamas assumed control of the enclave in 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained a siege, limiting the passage of people and goods.
Egypt is concerned about the possibility that people of Gaza may be forced to leave due to Israel’s embargo and bombardment of the region, which was initiated in retribution for the deadly incursion by Hamas terrorists.
Like other Arab nations, it has stated that as the conflict intensifies, Palestinians should remain on their territories and that it is striving to ensure that relief reaches the Gaza Strip.
