Israel Rafah border crossing open: Patients leave Gaza Strip

SDA

1.2.2025 - 13:24

dpatopbilder - Palestinians who were wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip wait outside the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. Wounded and sick Palestinians are allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment. Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/AP/dpa
dpatopbilder - Palestinians who were wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip wait outside the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. Wounded and sick Palestinians are allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment. Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/AP/dpa
Keystone

For the first time in almost nine months, the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip has been reopened. Several patients were brought from Gaza via Rafah to Egypt for medical treatment, as confirmed by security circles and the Egyptian Red Crescent. The state-affiliated TV station Al-Kahira News showed pictures of the departing patients. Initially, around 50 of them were to leave Gaza.

Keystone-SDA

The only border crossing that does not cross Israeli territory was closed after Israel's army took control on the Palestinian side last May.

According to Al-Kahira News, a boy with an immune disorder accompanied by his mother and a girl who was to have a leg amputated were first taken to Egypt. They entered the transit area of the crossing in ambulances on the Palestinian side, where Egyptian ambulances were waiting for them. Sick and injured people had also left the area in such transfers before Rafah was closed.

The border crossing is just as important for the departure of injured and sick people for treatment in Egypt and other countries as it is for the import of aid supplies to Gaza. According to UN figures, around two million people there are suffering from hunger.

However, there was initially no indication that aid deliveries to Gaza via Rafah would start again. For months, these have only reached Gaza via crossings controlled by Israel.

2,500 children urgently need medical help

The Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza published pictures of a group of sick and injured people being driven to Rafah. According to the TV station Al Jazeera, around 50 patients with cancer and heart disease should be able to leave. This figure was also confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO), which supported the departing patients with a team on site. Al-Kahira News reported that around 100 people would be leaving the country, including the sick, injured and those accompanying them.

According to the WHO, a total of 12,000 to 14,000 people are in urgent need of medical assistance, which cannot be provided in the Gaza Strip. Among them are at least 2,500 children. These are people with life-threatening illnesses or war injuries.

3,000 trucks are ready

The reopening of the Rafah border crossing is part of a three-phase agreement between Hamas and Israel to end the Gaza war. According to the Egyptian Red Cross, 3,000 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies have also been prepared in Sinai for entry into Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

Until now, the trucks have been traveling from Rafah to the Kerem Shalom crossing, which leads through Israeli territory. There they are inspected and the goods are released for distribution in Gaza.

A spokesman for the US State Department had said that Washington hoped to see more than 500 trucks entering Gaza every day. However, this would not happen "overnight". Deliveries would be made more difficult due to the security situation in the coastal area. The distribution had previously failed due to a lack of trucks and drivers, among other things, and there was also looting in Gaza.

Food rations for one million people

The United Nations and aid organizations have been pushing for months for Rafah to be reopened in order to provide better humanitarian supplies to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Due to the closure of the crossing, relief supplies such as food, water and medicines have only been able to reach Gaza through Israeli-controlled crossings such as Kerem Shalom, Erez and Kissufim in recent months.

The World Food Program (WFP) said it was able to provide food rations for more than one million people in Gaza and support the economy and local food production.