US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, assured that the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, “will open” to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians trapped in the enclave.
“Rafah will open up,” Blinken said in statements to journalists who accompanied him after meeting in Cairo with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al Sisi.
Waiting for an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza
While Israel reinforces its military presence in the area around the Strip and intensifies its attacks, the Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, guaranteed to “enter Gaza”, where the humanitarian situation has collapsed, without drinking water or hardly any food, waiting of a land incursion that will have even more devastating consequences.
The Israeli Army confirmed today that a soldier died yesterday in one of the attacks with anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon towards Israel against the Nurit military post, an attack claimed by the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
In the Gaza Strip, an even greater accumulation of battalions could be seen: hundreds of tanks and military vehicles are stationed in large esplanades near the border with northern Gaza, where Israeli troops are expected to break through.
While waiting for this land incursion, Israel continues to indiscriminately bombard the entire Strip, there are no safe routes to travel and the hospitals are collapsed. In Gaza City, where the morgues are not enough, today the dead began to be buried in mass graves.
In nine days of war, the deaths in the Strip exceed 2,670, the highest number in the history of the enclave – which already has more deaths than in the 2014 conflict that lasted 55 days – and the wounded total 9,600.
Blinken wants to bring assistance to those who need it
“We are establishing, in collaboration with the UN, Egypt, Israel and others, a mechanism to bring assistance to those who need it,” said the head of US diplomacy, according to a transcript later released by the State Department.
Hours later, the American network NBC, citing a Palestinian official, reported that the Rafah crossing will open tomorrow, Monday at 9:00 a.m. local time, allowing the entry of humanitarian aid.
In addition, the American network ABC, citing a security source, indicated that the pass will open for a few hours on Monday, without offering more details.
EFE asked the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, but did not obtain confirmation.
The United States had reached an agreement with Egypt, Israel and Qatar so that yesterday, Saturday, hundreds of foreigners and Palestinians with passports from other countries, including American and European citizens, would be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.
However, after the agreement was leaked, the Egyptian authorities announced that they would not allow foreigners in Gaza to enter their country if aid was not previously facilitated for the 2.2 million people overcrowded in the strip.
Humanitarian aid, including medicine for hospitals in Gaza, is now waiting to cross from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the only exit from the Palestinian enclave that is not controlled by Israel and that connects with the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
As the United States, Canada and other countries attempt to evacuate their citizens from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military appears to be preparing for a ground invasion, although there is no exact date for that operation.
However, Israeli soldiers gather on the border with the Strip and the Executive has asked the 1.1 million Palestinians who live in the north of the enclave to move to the south, an ultimatum that has been strongly condemned by the community. Arab and the UN.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, warned Israel that reoccupying the Gaza Strip would be a “big mistake ,” although he defended the right of the Jewish State to enter the Palestinian enclave to eliminate fighters from the Islamist group Hamas.
Biden’s statements, made in an interview broadcast this Sunday on CBS, represent his first public attempt to try to contain the retaliation that Israel has taken against the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack on October 7 .
Until now, Biden had reaffirmed his unwavering support for Israel and had avoided criticizing the Jewish state for the blockade imposed on Gaza, which has prevented the entry of water, food and medicine since the Hamas attack, despite warnings from the UN about the possibility of a humanitarian crisis.
However, in the interview, the president expressed reluctance about a full-scale occupation of the Gaza Strip.
“I think it would be a big mistake,” Biden told CBS in the interview recorded on Thursday and broadcast this Sunday night.
“What happened in Gaza, in my opinion, is that Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas do not represent all the Palestinian people. And I think it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again,” he stated.
Biden criticizes that extremists in Gaza hide behind civilians
The American president, for his part, considered it necessary to “eliminate the extremists” who are hiding among the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt between the armistice of the 1949 Arab-Israeli war and the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel seized the Sinai, Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The following year, Hamas, considered a terrorist group by several countries (including Israel, the US and the European Union), ran in the 2006 elections and won the majority of seats. of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Faced with the international threat of sanctions, the Islamist movement accepted a unity government with the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas.
However, a violent fight in the streets of the Strip between supporters of Hamas and those of the Palestinian president ended with the expulsion of the latter from the enclave.
Hamas began de facto rule in 2007 and since then the territory has been isolated and blocked by land, sea and air by Egypt and Israel. In addition, it depends on the Jewish State for supplies.
The Israeli Army forcibly entered the Gaza Strip in 2009 and 2014, but in both cases it chose not to remain in that territory.
By Web Desk
