GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday said Morocco could ask for aid “today or tomorrow” to help it recover and rebuild following a devastating earthquake that has killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
“We are expecting and hoping, but expecting from our discussions with the Moroccan authorities that the request for assistance will go out within today or tomorrow,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva.
Morocco has allowed rescue teams to come to its aid from Spain, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates since the magnitude 6.8 quake struck last Friday, but has declined offers from several other nations, including the United States, France and some Middle Eastern countries.
“We are ready to work and we’re ready to provide support on coordination,” Griffiths said, adding that “the next phase is to provide aid to those survivors — shelter, food, medical supplies.”
“It is only in the recent day or so that in Morocco, the shift has been from finding survivors to helping survivors to survive. And that’s when aid is of the highest importance,” he added.
On Thursday, Morocco announced the launch of an aid program to support and rehouse the residents of around 50,000 damaged buildings, and ordered urgent aid of 30,000 dirhams (nearly $3,000) to affected households.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) expects that it will take “weeks, months, years to be able to rebuild,” spokesman Benoit Carpentier told journalists from Marrakech.
“We were talking about rebuilding several of these villages... It’s hundreds and hundreds of villages that are scattered in the mountains,” he said.
UN says quake-hit Morocco could demand assistance ‘today or tomorrow’
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UN says quake-hit Morocco could demand assistance ‘today or tomorrow’
- Morocco has allowed rescue teams to come to its aid from Spain, Britain, Qatar and the UAE
- “We are ready to work and we’re ready to provide support on coordination,” said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths
Palestinians attempt to use Gaza’s Rafah Border crossing amidst delays
- The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening
CAIRO: Palestinians on both sides of the crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which opened last week for the first time since 2024, were making their way to the border on Sunday in hopes of crossing, one of the main requirements for the US-backed ceasefire. The opening comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, though the major subject of discussion will be Iran, his office said.
The Rafah Crossing opened to a few Palestinians in each direction last week, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening. Over the first four days of the crossing’s opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to United Nations data.
Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that they say is not available in the war-shattered territory. The few who have succeeded in crossing described delays and allegations of mistreatment by Israeli forces and other groups involved in the crossing, including and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab.
A group of Palestinian patients and wounded gathered Sunday morning in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, before making their way to the Rafah crossing with Egypt for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.
Amjad Abu Jedian, who was injured in the war, was scheduled to leave Gaza for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing’s reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel that day, his mother, Raja Abu Jedian, said. Abu Jedian was shot by an Israeli sniper while he was building traditional bathrooms in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.
On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization notifying them that he is included in the group that will travel on Sunday, she said.
“We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation),” she said. “We want the Israeli military not to burden them.”
The Israeli defense branch that oversees the operation of the crossing did not immediately confirm the opening.
A group of Palestinians also arrived Sunday morning at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing border to return to the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.
Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing’s operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.
The crossing was reopened on Feb. 2 as part of a fragile ceasefire deal that stopped the war between Israel and Hamas. Amid confusion around the reopening, the Rafah crossing was closed Friday and Saturday.
The Rafah crossing, an essential lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, was the only crossing not controlled by Israel prior to the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side of Rafah in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.
Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — along with two companions for each — would be allowed to leave, but far fewer people than expected have crossed in both directions.
