Witnesses told AFP that on Sunday, convoys of humanitarian goods piled up close to Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip because they were unable to reach the Israeli-bombed Palestinian territory.
Since Tuesday, the only border crossing into and out of the Gaza Strip that is not under Israeli control has been closed as a result of three Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian border station within a 24-hour period.
The agreement between Egypt and Israel to permit American citizens to exit Gaza through Rafah was verified to the Associated Press on Saturday by a senior American official.
Egypt, meanwhile, has put restrictions on the agreement.
Officials refused for “the crossing to be designated for only foreigners to cross,” according to Egyptian news channel Al-Qahera News, which has ties to Egyptian intelligence agencies.
“The Egyptian stance is clear, which requires the aid to arrive in Gaza,” the report added, as alarm grows over shortages of essential supplies in the blockaded territory.
The Egyptian concrete blocks that were put in place to protect the border after Israel bombed it were still there, according to witnesses on Sunday, indicating that no passage was planned for the near future.
At El Arish airport, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Rafah, assistance shipments from Jordan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates had already arrived, along with enough WHO-supplied medical supplies to treat 300,000 patients.
100 transport trucks carrying 1,000 tonnes of relief were sent by Egypt.
Israel, which controls the other two crossing points into Gaza, has declared a “complete siege” of the Palestinian coastal enclave, cutting off food, water, fuel and electricity supplies to the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on Friday: “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home”.
Since Hamas assumed power in Gaza in 2007, the region has been subject to a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade.
Bulldozers were used by thousands of Palestinians escaping Israeli bombardment in 2008 to break over the Egyptian border.
In preparation for an anticipated ground invasion in reprisal for Hamas’s strike on southern Israel on October 7, Israel ordered the 1.1 million civilian residents of the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate south.
