Gaza City: Egypt on Thursday opened its largely sealed border with the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip for three days, on the eve of more planned protests against Israel, Palestinian authorities said.
In just the fourth such opening this year, the Rafah crossing to Egypt’s Sinai region will be open until Saturday for humanitarian cases, the interior ministry in Gaza said.
An AFP photographer saw a first busload of 70 people, including women and children, crossing on Thursday morning.
The opening comes ahead of a third consecutive Friday of planned mass protests along the Gaza-Israel border.
Israeli media reports have said Egypt, one of only two Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state, had been negotiating with Gaza’s rulers Hamas to seek to calm the crisis.
Thirty-two Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded by Israeli forces since March 30 as thousands have approached the border fence and clashes have erupted.
Israel says its forces have opened fire to stop attempts to damage the fence, infiltrations, bids to carry out attacks and at those seeking to harm soldiers.
Palestinians say protesters are being shot while posing no threat to soldiers.
The Rafah crossing is the only exit for Gaza residents except into Israel, but Egypt has largely sealed it in recent years, citing security threats.
Egyptian authorities have had a strained relationship with Hamas, which began as an offshoot of Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood.
For more than a decade, Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza that critics say amounts to collective punishment of the coastal territory’s two million Palestinians.
Israel says the blockade is necessary to isolate Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since 2008.
In October, Egypt brokered a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, that was supposed to see the group give up power in Gaza.
But the deal has collapsed, with the two Palestinian groups trading blame.
Egypt opens Gaza border ahead of new protests against Israel
Egypt opens Gaza border ahead of new protests against Israel
- The opening of the Rafah crossing to Egypt’s Sinai region comes ahead of a third consecutive Friday of planned mass protests along the Gaza-Israel border.
- Thirty-two Palestinians have been killed and hundreds wounded by Israeli forces since March 30 as thousands have approached the border fence and clashes have erupted.
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
