A remarkable recovery at the Rafah crossing and Egyptian movements to provide additional aid

Aid continues to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing, with a remarkable increase on the third day of the temporary humanitarian truce, which began on Friday morning, and included an exchange of prisoners and the entry of a larger number of aid and fuel trucks into the Strip. As of midday on Sunday, 160 aid trucks had entered the Gaza Strip, including 4 gas trucks and 3 fuel trucks, according to the spokesman for the Palestinian Rafah crossing.

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Dia Rashwan, head of the Egyptian Information Service, revealed the volume of medical aid brought into the Gaza Strip as of Saturday evening, which amounted to 2,675 tons, while the volume of food aid amounted to 9,621 tons, and the volume of water reached 7,047 tons, in addition to 82 pieces. Of tents and tarpaulins, in addition to 1,992 tons of other relief materials.

Rashwan indicated, in a statement, that 788 tons of fuel had been brought in as of Saturday evening, stressing that the total number of trucks that crossed from the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip reached 2,056 trucks during this period.

The head of the State Information Service noted that Egypt received during this period 353 injured Gazans, accompanied by 292 people, in addition to the crossing of 8,514 foreign nationals and dual nationals and 1,256 Egyptians from the Rafah crossing.

During the truce, the Rafah crossing witnessed a state of recovery in the movement of aid entry, in addition to receiving foreign nationals wishing to leave the Gaza Strip, and the entry of voluntary Palestinians returning to the Gaza Strip.

International aid also continues to be received through Al-Arish Airport, which received 5 planes on Sunday, including 3 from Qatar, one from Saudi Arabia, and another from Belgium, in preparation for transporting their cargo to the Gaza Strip.

For his part, Essam Abdel Rahman, director of the media center of the “Good Makers” Foundation, a member of the “Egyptian National Alliance for Civil and Development Work,” confirmed that “there are intensive movements in the various institutions of the coalition, which includes 34 Egyptian charitable organizations, to meet the growing needs of the residents of the Gaza Strip. In addition to the continued influx of international aid.”

Abdel Rahman explained to Asharq Al-Awsat that the implementation of the humanitarian truce had a positive impact on the increase in the number of aid trucks entering Gaza daily, pointing out that the number of trucks since they began entering the Strip on October 21 last year ranged between 13 and 20. Trucks, then the number increased under Egyptian pressure to 80 trucks before the truce, and after its implementation, about 230 trucks were brought in daily, including food, medical supplies, blankets, and clothes to confront the climatic conditions in the winter in the Strip.

He explained that more than 600 trucks are currently queuing in front of the Rafah crossing, waiting for their turn to enter the Gaza Strip, stressing that the “National Alliance for Civil and Development Action,” in coordination with other charitable and relief institutions, “is ready to meet all the needs of our brothers in Gaza,” and the number of trucks can be doubled. If this is agreed upon and entry procedures are facilitated, the pace of fundraising increases from various Egyptian governorates. In this regard, he pointed out that charitable institutions recorded what he described as “unprecedented” demand for donations, some of which come from poor villages, in addition to several individual initiatives. .

Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced on Sunday that UN member states had paid about $256 million in response to the urgent appeal it launched regarding the Gaza Strip. The office said that the amount paid constitutes only about 21 percent of the required response, amounting to $1.2 billion.

At the beginning of this month, the United Nations and its partners launched an urgent appeal to implement its response plan to support 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip, and half a million in the occupied West Bank, allocated to the sectors of food, health, security, shelter, education, protection, coordination, and others.