Rafah Pass is temporarily closed for security reasons

The passage of Rafahbetween the Gaza Strip and the Egyptwas temporarily closed due to security circumstances, officials said. U.S this Wednesday, 8. At a press conference, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said that the Egyptian-administered crossing will reopen at “regular intervals” when the situation is resolved. Patel did not specify the nature of the situation and confirmed that “there has been no inbound or outbound traffic throughout the day.” “Our expectation is that once the situations are concluded, the crossing will be opened at the regular intervals at which it has been opened and the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip and specific foreigners leaving will be able to do so,” he explained. Rafah is the region where humanitarian aid is entering the Gaza Strip and thousands of people are leaving for Egypt every day. To date, more than 400 Americans have been evacuated through the crossing, the White House official said. “The border crossing has been open in many cases and has been able to facilitate the safe exit of foreigners who have sought it, so this is important and we will continue to work towards this,” he added.

Some 329 people were also evacuated on Tuesday, bringing to about 1,400 the total number of foreigners and Palestinians with dual citizenship who have come since November 1, when foreigners were allowed to leave the enclave in a controlled manner. With this closure, the passage of the group of Brazilians waiting to be repatriated is delayed once again. This Wednesday, at Young panO Itamaraty said that there was still no expectation of when they would leave the Palestinian enclave, but they emphasized that they continue to do everything possible to remove Brazilians from the region. There were expectations that the group of around 34 people would be able to leave the region this Wednesday, which did not materialize. On Tuesday, trains of 52 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid arrived in the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, which connects the Palestinian enclave with Egypt and is the only crossing through which aid has entered since the start of the war.

Since Israel allowed humanitarian aid to pass through Rafah on October 21, around 600 trucks have entered the Gaza Strip, an average of 33 per day, but Israeli authorities have begun blocking access to the fuel for fear it will fall. in the hands of the Islamic group Hamas. International organizations, countries and itself UN denounced that the amount of aid reaching the enclave is insufficient, remembering that, before the start of the war, a month ago, around 500 trucks of humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip every day. Egypt estimates that around 7,000 people of 60 nationalities arrive in the North African country via this route, including Palestinians with foreign passports and citizens of other countries.

*With information from EFE