About 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid will enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Friday at the earliest, according to the White House, following President Joe Biden's whirlwind visit to Israel the day after the massacre. of more than 400 Palestinians at the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City. The humanitarian aid on which at least 80% of Gazans had depended for years, due to the blockade that Israel has imposed on the enclave since 2007, was interrupted after the attack by Hamas, which governs the strip, in southern Israel on December 7. October.
The United States and Egypt have been pushing for a deal with Israel to deliver aid to Gaza. While the agreement was a breakthrough, the flow of aid will still fall short of the perceived need. UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Wednesday that the organization needed to deliver at least 100 trucks of aid a day, similar to levels before the conflict between Israel and Hamas. During the month of August, a total of 12,000 trucks circulated through the passes that connect the south of the enclave with Egypt, according to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). 60% passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing and the rest through Rafah.
After hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet, Biden stated that Israel had agreed to allow the opening of the Rafah crossing to deliver desperately needed food, water and medical supplies, on the condition that that humanitarian assistance not be provided to Hamas. Fuel deliveries are excluded, although it would serve Gazans to pump water with generators that have been without electricity for more than a week. "Fuel is absolutely critical for the desalination plant and water pumping stations," according to UNRWA.
Biden stated that if the Islamist group Hamas intercepts the aid it will be cut off, but that if the trucks reach the civilian population as planned, then Egypt will allow more to enter. Biden spoke by phone with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, when he took off from Israel for about half an hour and that was where the Egyptian leader gave the go-ahead for the entry of 20 trucks through Rafah, the American leader explained.
However, Cairo must first repair the roads, covering potholes and damage caused by Israeli bombing, a task that will take about eight hours. Rafah is the only crossing not controlled by Israel but has been out of operation since the early days of the Gaza conflict over Israeli bombs on the Palestinian side of the border. Al Sisi had already reiterated yesterday that the crossing was open on the Egyptian side, but on the Palestinian side it was closed because it did not yet have permission from Israel and because the road was destroyed due to at least four bombings launched by the Jewish State. the start of hostilities.
Currently, according to what an NGO told the EFE agency, hundreds of trucks from Egyptian non-governmental organizations are still waiting for the Rafah crossing to open, which is destroyed on the Palestinian side by Israeli bombings in recent days. According to Biden, the 20 trucks represent a "first step", but that "around 150" trucks are waiting to enter. Whether the rest will be allowed to cross will depend on "how things go," she added. Additionally, more aid is being withheld in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, capital of the North Sinai province, about 45 kilometers from Rafah.
As part of the agreement, United Nations troops will be on the Palestinian side of the border to distribute medicine, water and food to the population, Biden said. It should be noted that the deal does not include the opening of the crossing so that the Palestinians who have been waiting for days at the border can enter Egypt, by decision of Cairo, as was allowed in the past under very restricted criteria.
