The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Sunday that the Rafah crossing, the only Gaza border point not under Israeli control, would reopen and that the US was working with Egypt, Israel and the UN to deliver aid to Gaza.
The crossing has been closed for days due to Israeli attacks, preventing hundreds of tonnes of aid from several countries from reaching Gaza and blocking the evacuation of some foreign nationals. Egypt said it was intensifying its diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation.
He said Egypt had provided a lot of material support for the people in Gaza and that they were setting up a mechanism with the UN, Egypt, Israel and others to get the assistance to those who need it.
“We have put in place, Egypt has put in place a lot of material support for people in Gaza, and Rafah will be reopened,”
“We are putting into place — with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Israel, with others — the mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to the people who need it,” Blinken told reporters in Cairo after what he said was a “very good conversation” with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The US also appointed veteran diplomat David Satterfield as Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues to lead the US response to the Gaza humanitarian crisis on Sunday.
Sisi told Blinken that Israel had reacted excessively by launching its heaviest-ever strikes in response to a Hamas incursion on Oct. 7.
He said Israel had gone beyond its right to self-defense and had collectively punished 2.3 million people in Gaza. He said he appeared with Blinken to show the need for cooperation to fight extremism, but also that Jews had lived peacefully in the Middle East in the past.
He said: “Perhaps targeting has happened in Europe … in other countries, but in our Arab and Islamic countries this did not happen.”
A statement from Sisi’s office on Sunday, after a meeting of the National Security Council, said Egypt rejected any plan to displace Palestinians at the expense of other countries and that Egypt’s own security was a red line. It said Palestinians should stay on their lands and that it was working to deliver aid.
According to the Egyptian Red Crescent, aid planes from Turkey, the UAE, Jordan, Tunisia, and the WHO have landed in Sinai’s Al Arish airport in recent days, and more than 100 trucks are waiting in the city for permission to enter Gaza.
