A statement from the Egyptian presidency detailed that the agreement was reached after a telephone conversation between the leaders of Egypt, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and the United States, Joe Biden, who visited Israel yesterday to show his support for the war campaign against the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli press revealed that, in exchange for his support for a military operation in Gaza, Biden urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow food and medicine into the Strip, stemming from a wave of international criticism sparked by the siege. However, Netanyahu rejected the entry of aid from Israel, which means that it will only be brought in from the Egyptian side.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry recently deplored attempts to misrepresent Cairo’s position on the status of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip. “We never closed the crossing, but it is not functioning normally due to four Israeli bombings,” he stated.
The governor of the North Sinai province, Mohamed Shousha, said two days ago that three thousand tons of humanitarian aid, collected by NGOs and Egyptian entities, are waiting at the border.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced last week the designation of the El-Arish airport, in the Sinai Peninsula, as an international aid hub for the Strip, and called on the international community to send in shipments of essential products to the terminal, which will then be transported by land via the Rafah border crossing, a few dozen kilometers away.
Since then, numerous planes have landed there with cargo from Türkiye, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, and other countries, as well as from the World Health Organization.
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