The Rafah crossing between Egypt and the south of the Gaza Strip briefly opened its doors this morning to allow the entry of the first shipment of humanitarian aid to the south of the Palestinian enclave since the beginning of the war between Hamas and Israel on 7 October.
About twenty trucks with “medicines, medical instruments and a limited amount of food, mainly canned food,” according to Hamas, have crossed the crossing and unloaded the material into Palestinian trucks that will begin the distribution process in the territory.
After the delivery of the material, the crossing has closed its doors again pending a subsequent decision on the transit of people who have been waiting for days to cross into Egypt, including foreigners and dual citizens, according to the correspondent of the CNN network present at the scene.
The reopening had been a top priority for international negotiators and humanitarian organizations to provide immediate assistance to hundreds of thousands of Gazans without access to essential means of survival in the south of the enclave.
These same humanitarian agencies, however, have requested that the entry of aid to the south of Gaza be fluid and constant given that these twenty trucks will by no means alleviate the needs of the population, as the executive director of the World Food Program has explained. , Cindy McCain, or representatives of the Palestinian Red Crescent, who have described this operation as “a drop in the ocean,” according to a statement collected by Al Jazeera.
In fact, Hamas denounced this past Friday that this shipment was nothing more than a “scheme” orchestrated by the United States and Israel, completely insufficient for the population, and today, Saturday, it reiterated that the aid item “is not going to change the catastrophic conditions.” of the inhabitants of Gaza”.
In this sense, the World Health Organization, for example, has reported shortly after the opening of the crossing that four trucks are heading to the crossing right now with trauma supplies for 1,200 people, portable trauma kits for in situ stabilization ‘ for 235 people, medicines for chronic diseases for 1,500 people, and essential health supplies for 300,000 people for three months.
The reopening of the crossing coincides with the holding in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, of the first major international summit on the war between Hamas and Israel since the beginning of the conflict, where heads of state and government as well as foreign ministers from more than About twenty countries will try to reach a consensus on a position on the conflict amid strong disagreements.
In fact, the United States even vetoed this Wednesday a resolution presented by Brazil to the United Nations Security Council to establish “humanitarian pauses” by arguing that this proposal could represent an obstacle to its negotiation efforts on the ground.
The resolution, which also called for the revocation of the order imposed by Israel for civilians in the area to move to the southern Gaza Strip, also demanded the release of the hostages taken by Hamas during its incursion into Israeli territory. .
