Egypt opens border post for Ramadan

Gesture will ‘alleviate the burdens of the brothers in the Gaza Strip’, Al Sissi says

Egypt has opened the Rafah border post with Gaza for Ramadan, President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi announced on Twitter, in what would be the longest uninterrupted period of time since 2013.

The move is meant as a humanitarian gesture, one of the few occasions when Egypt allows some Gazans stranded by a 2007 Egypt-Israel blockade to leave and return to the territory. The announcement late on Thursday came just days after Israeli occupation forces shot and killed 62 Palestinians and injured more than 2,700 during mass protests along the Gaza border.

Al Sissi wrote on his official Twitter account that the opening would “alleviate the burdens of the brothers in the Gaza Strip.”

Adham Abu Selmia, head of the Hamas-linked National Committee to Break Gaza Siege, welcomed the lengthy extension as a “positive step.”

“We hope the crossing will stay open as a normal right,” he said in a statement on Twitter, calling also for increasing the number of departures and accelerating the exit process.

The border post has been open since Saturday, so Al Sissi’s announcement is technically an extension. Egyptian authorities said 510 people crossed on Wednesday, the majority coming from Gaza into Egypt. On Thursday, 541 people crossed from Egypt into Gaza along with dozens of trucks carrying cement, steel, power engines and medical and food aid from the Red Crescent, officials said.

Yesterday, travellers were slowly moving towards the border post, a bus arriving about every hour with people whose names appeared on lists provided by Hamas officials, who oversee who goes through the border.

The Rafah border post is Gaza’s main gate to the outside world but has only had sporadic openings since the 2013.