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The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will reopen for evacuations, local officials said on Monday, after a two-day closure following an Israeli strike on an ambulance convoy in the coastal enclave.
A spokesman for the crossing said an unspecified number of Egyptians and foreigners whose names were on lists drawn up last week — when exits from the territory were allowed for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel erupted on October 7 — would be allowed to leave.
The Red Cross said later on Monday that it had escorted a four-ambulance convoy taking patients from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City to the crossing.
The announcements came amid mounting international pressure for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow aid into Gaza, which Israel has subjected to a devastating siege and bombardment since Hamas militants carried out the deadliest ever attack on Israel last month.
Palestinian officials said on Monday that the death toll in Gaza had risen to 10,022 after another 24 hours of intense bombardments by the Israeli military, while ActionAid, a charity group, said 500,000 people in Gaza were now facing “severe food shortages and life-threatening illnesses due to the acute lack of food and water”.
Hamas’s assault on Israel killed approximately 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
More than 6,000 foreign nationals were present in Gaza before the first departures last week, according to diplomats, and more than 1,100 left via Rafah — the only exit from Gaza not controlled by Israel — on November 2 and 3, according to the UN’s humanitarian arm, OCHA.
However, no departures of either foreign nationals or wounded Palestinians took place over the weekend, which OCHA said was “reportedly due to the failure of Hamas, Israel and Egypt to reach an agreement regarding the safe evacuation of patients from northern Gaza”.
Two people familiar with the situation said that in the wake of the convoy strike on Friday Hamas had insisted that wounded Palestinians be at the top of the list of those allowed to leave and that disagreements over this were causing the delay. One person said Hamas had tried to get its own militants out with the evacuees.
Israel said the convoy, which was travelling from Gaza City to Rafah, was “being used by a Hamas operative”, and claimed that several Hamas militants were killed in its strike. Video from the scenes showed civilian casualties, including women and children.
The planned reopening of Rafah comes amid growing concern about humanitarian conditions in Gaza, as the Israeli military prepares to step up its operations in the enclave, having encircled Gaza City over the weekend.
On Monday, South Africa became the latest in a series of countries — including Jordan, Turkey, Chile and Colombia — to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in protest over Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, the heads of a dozen UN agencies called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire”. The UN officials said: “It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now.”
During a visit to Ankara on Monday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, said he had discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, and that the US shared the “deep concern here” over the toll that the war was taking on civilians.
“We’ve engaged the Israelis on steps that they can take to minimise civilian casualties. We’re working, as I said, very aggressively on getting more humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” he said.
“I think you’ll see in the days ahead that the assistance can expand in significant ways so that more gets into people who need it . . . as well as making sure that people can continue to come out of Gaza.”
Fidan called on Blinken to lobby Israel to declare an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, adding that “Israel should be prevented from targeting civilians and displacing people in Gaza” according to a Turkish diplomatic source.
Blinken also said the US was working to prevent the Hamas-Israel war from becoming a broader conflict. Tensions continued to flare across the region on Monday, with Israel hitting targets in Lebanon after militants fired about 30 rockets across the border, according to the Israeli military.
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