From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Egypt said planning to allow wounded Gazans to cross border for treatment
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Egypt will be opening the Rafah crossing to allow wounded Palestinians to be treated in Egyptian hospitals for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, media reports said, citing Palestinian and Egyptian sources.
National Security Council chairman Tzachi Hanegbi said earlier today that Israel hopes Cairo will open its border in order to allow the injured to be treated in the Rafah hospital along with field hospitals that can be established on Egypt’s side of the border.
Hanegbi also said that a number of countries heeded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to send ships that will dock off the coast of Gaza and serve as hospitals in the small southwest area of the Strip that Israel has designated as a safe zone.
“Medical teams will be present tomorrow at the crossing to examine the cases coming [from Gaza] as soon as they arrive… and determine the hospitals they will be sent to,” a medical official in Egypt’s city of El Arish tells AFP.
Israel’s Channel 12 says Egypt is building a field hospital along the border.
Egypt has thus far refrained from allowing Gazan civilians to exit through its border, restricting passage to humanitarian aid entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
Israeli proposals for Egypt to take in refugees from Gaza have infuriated Cairo, particularly because Jerusalem has refused to publicly promise that those who leave the Strip will be allowed to return, an Egyptian official told The Times of Israel last week.
