Egypt Opens Gaza Border Crossing to Humanitarian Aid, but Still Rejects Refugees

The Egyptian government agreed on Thursday to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza for humanitarian aid convoys, although Egypt still refuses to accept any Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

Although Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi repeated on Wednesday that he will not open the Rafah crossing to refugees, President Joe Biden said Sisi agreed to allow trucks loaded with humanitarian supplies to cross from Egypt into Gaza, beginning as early as Friday.

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Until now, Egyptian officials had bizarrely insisted the crossing was “open” even though no one was actually allowed to pass through it. Egyptian officials, including Sisi, claimed the border had to be tightly restricted because Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing made the area dangerous.

Egypt proposed allowing the roughly 600 foreign nationals believed to be stuck in Gaza to evacuate using the crossing, but only if international humanitarian aid was sent in exchange. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed, provided steps were taken to prevent Hamas terrorists from seizing the supplies for themselves.

Biden did not mention the stranded foreign nationals, but he did say Egypt agreed to let 20 trucks full of supplies cross into Gaza. On Wednesday morning, Egyptian security officials said machinery had been sent through the Rafah crossing to repair the roads on the other side. These sources said over a hundred trucks were ready to roll into Gaza once the roads were secure.

“We’re negotiating with the parties to make sure that we can get humanitarian goods going in and right now we’re in the process of those negotiations. We’re trying to get them in as soon as can,” a United Nations spokesman told CNN on Wednesday.

European and American officials told the far-left New York Times (NYT) on Wednesday that one of the roadblocks is that Egyptian authorities have not allowed foreign diplomats to access the staging area for humanitarian aid, or inspect the vehicles. 

The NYT counted 106 trucks “loaded with aid from local charities” lined up at the crossing to Gaza, with 58 more truckloads of supplies standing by at the Egyptian Red Crescent headquarters in the city of Arish.

“Storage facilities of the Egyptian Red Crescent were overflowing with humanitarian aid supplies, and the El Arish football stadium, which is storing aid sent from other countries and international humanitarian organizations, has also reached maximum capacity,” a senior Red Crescent member told the NYT.