New Delhi: Two weeks after its effective closure due to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza has opened after negotiations involving the US, Israel, the UN and Egypt.
Egyptian trucks carrying aid crossed into the Gaza strip to provide necessary supplies to Palestinians running short of food, medicine and water.
“Under the agreement, only 20 trucks will be allowed today, all deliveries from the Egyptian Red Crescent to the Palestinian Red Crescent organisation. A UN official said that the next convoy might not be allowed to cross until Monday. The Israeli government has demanded to see proof that the aid deliveries are not seized or diverted by Hamas, before authorising further deliveries,” The Guardian reported Saturday.
Ahead of the Rafa crossing’s opening, Doctors Without Borders — an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation — said, “regular ceasefires must be guaranteed for medicines and fuel to be brought in”.
In #Gaza, “without electricity, many patients will die… It is vital to get the hospitals back up and running. To do that, regular ceasefires must be guaranteed for medicines and fuel to be brought in.”
Read our medical coordinator's update 👇https://t.co/GG3EK1fJcN
— MSF International (@MSF) October 21, 2023
The development comes hours after Hamas released two American hostages to Israeli forces, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stating at a press briefing that 10 American citizens remain unaccounted for.
The US Embassy in Israel Saturday issued a security alert prior to the crossing’s opening, describing the situation as “dynamic” and expressing uncertainty over “how long it will remain open for foreign citizens to depart Gaza”.
“We anticipate that many people would attempt to cross should the border open, and U.S. citizens attempting to enter Egypt should expect a potentially chaotic and disorderly environment on both sides of the crossing,” the statement added.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for “safe passage of additional aid convoys across the enclave, protection of all humanitarian workers, and sustained access for health aid”.
.@WHO medical supplies crossed the Rafah border. But the needs are far higher.
To meet the urgent health needs of all people in Gaza, we call for:
-safe passage of additional aid convoys across the enclave
-protection of all humanitarian workers
-sustained access for health aid
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 21, 2023
Confirming the crossing of the Egyptian aid convoy, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the development and labelled it as “the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza”.
“We are witnessing a paradox: behind these walls we have two million people that are suffering enormously, have no water, no food, no medicine, no fuel, that is under fire, that needs everything to survive,” Guterres added.
What is the Rafah border crossing
The history of this crossing dates back over a century when the British and Ottoman empires controlled Egypt and Palestine respectively, with the border at the time stretching from Egyptian coastal town of Taba to Rafah.
But Rafah’s current state as a divided border-city was officially recognised only due to the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty, as Israel returned the Sinai peninsula to Egypt 12 years after it had taken over the peninsula and the Gaza strip in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The next major development came in 2005 with Israel’s disengagement from Gaza and the border’s closure until it was reopened under the supervision of the European Union, but Israeli forces retained observational control of movement and trade over the crossing, from its nearby military base.
More phases of closures took place over the years in light of Hamas terrorist attacks, the Covid pandemic as well as escalations of the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine. The latest closure occurred from the Egyptian side of the border, after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war broke out on 7 October.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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