Egypt to receive wounded Gazans through key crossing: Sources

CAIRO – Egypt is preparing to treat wounded Palestinians from the bombarded Gaza Strip starting on Wednesday, with the opening of a border crossing to people after weeks of war, medical and security sources said.

The border authority in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said that Egypt had agreed to let in 81 of the most badly wounded on Wednesday through Rafah, the only crossing not controlled by Israel.

An AFP photographer on Tuesday saw a large number of ambulances gathered at Rafah.

It comes amid

unrelenting Israeli bombardment

of the Gaza Strip, with the Health Ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory saying more than 8,500 people have been killed, including over 3,500 children.

The strikes come in response to an Oct 7 attack in which

Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel

, killing 1,400 people, the majority of which were civilians, according to Israeli officials.

“Medical teams will be present tomorrow (Wednesday) at the crossing to examine the cases coming (from Gaza) as soon as they arrive... and determine the hospitals they will be sent to,” a medical official in Egypt’s city of El Arish told AFP.

A security source at the Rafah crossing confirmed the information, which was earlier reported by the state-affiliated Al-Qahera news channel.

The medical official added that a field hospital with an area of 1,300 sq m would be built to receive the wounded Palestinians in the city of Sheikh Zuweid in northern Sinai, about 15km from Rafah.

The US voiced hope that hundreds of Palestinian-Americans stuck in Gaza would be able to leave through Rafah.

“We do think we’ve made very good progress on this in just the past few hours,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

“We would hope that any agreement to get any individuals out would also unlock the possibility of American citizens or their families and other foreign nationals coming out,” he said.

He said that the United States would inform American citizens in Gaza to head to Rafah “as soon as we have actionable information”.

US officials had earlier reported a deal with Egypt on the crossing and accused Hamas of not letting people through.

Mr Miller said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the Rafah issue in telephone talks with leaders of Qatar, where Hamas has an office.

Foreign governments say that people from 44 countries and 28 agencies, including United Nations bodies, are living in the Gaza Strip, where 2.4 million people have been living through bombardment

without water or electricity and with little food

after Israel tightened its 16-year blockade further in response to the Hamas attacks.

Israeli National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters that Israel was speaking to Egypt about the injured.

But he made clear that there was still a dispute on

aid deliveries

, with Egypt seeking to let more trucks into Gaza but Israel saying it was limited to searching dozens of vehicles a day.

The US, which has backed Israel but pressed for greater humanitarian considerations, has voiced hope that 100 trucks a day could go through Rafah.

The decision to open the crossing came hours after an Israeli strike on Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, where the Health Ministry has said at least 50 people were killed.

Egypt on Tuesday condemned

the strike on the refugee camp

“in the strongest terms”, warning of “the consequences of the continuation of these indiscriminate attacks that target defenceless civilians” in a Foreign Ministry statement. AFP