UAE supplies among aid entering reopened Rafah crossing
Lorries carrying humanitarian aid – including 14 loaded with supplies sent by the UAE – entered Gaza from Egypt yesterday after the Rafah border crossing was reopened.
Crossing closures delayed aid deliveries in recent days and hundreds of lorries were waiting for inspection before travelling into the enclave.
“The border has been closed for several days now, but we received an order this morning to reopen since conditions have calmed down on the other side,” an Egyptian border official told The National.
Conditions are dire across the border in Rafah, where about 1.4 million displaced Gazans are living in tents, having fled Israeli strikes and fighting.
Food, clean water, medicine and other essentials are in short supply.
Mohammed Hassanain, one of the many lorry drivers waiting at the border, told The National he had been there for more than a week.
“At the beginning of the conflict, we were waiting under chaotic conditions because everything happened so fast, but now it’s been more organised,” Mr Hassanain said, shortly before driving his lorry into the besieged enclave.
“Conditions last night were very horrible, temperatures dipped and we were struggling with the cold but we made do with burning a few branches of trees to keep warm.
“What keeps us going, though, is how much worse the conditions are for our Palestinian brothers and sisters on the other side.
“We hope that the aid we will deliver will help them, but we know it is not nearly enough.”
The UAE has sent more than 15,700 tonnes of aid to Gaza since President Sheikh Mohamed announced the launch of Operation Gallant Knight 3 in November last year.
The UAE has also set up desalination plants capable of producing more than 4.5 million litres of drinking water every day, state news agency Wam reported yesterday.
Rashid Al Mansoori, acting secretary general of the Emirates Red Crescent, told The National that a 100-bed hospital ship to treat injured Gazans
was expected to arrive in Al Arish this week, probably on Thursday.
The international community has sent about 200,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid and medical supplies since the Israel-Gaza war began in October last year, said Nivine El Kabbag, assistant minister in Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity.
However, Israel’s rigorous inspections have meant that only a fraction of that aid has entered Gaza.
Tension has been high on both sides of the border over the past week, as Israel threatens to send troops into Rafah.
Fighting continues in nearby Khan Younis, with sporadic clashes still breaking out in northern areas supposedly cleared of Hamas fighters and other Palestinian militants.
Egypt’s North Sinai governorate denied media reports that a walled enclosure being built near the border is intended to hold people fleeing from Israel’s planned assault on Rafah.
“The satellite images that were reported by the western media over the weekend showed the zone being cleared so that Egypt’s security apparatus can widen the waiting areas for lorries, storage space for aid shipments, administrative offices and places for lorry drivers to sleep, since the existing area adjacent to the Rafah crossing has been limited since the conflict first erupted,” North Sinai Governor Mohamed Shousha told The National.
“The new facility will reduce the pile-up of aid in Al Arish and facilitate aid efforts undertaken by the Egyptian Red Crescent,” he added.
The report in The Wall Street Journal was accompanied by satellite images of construction work on the Egyptian side of the border.