Agencies
Cairo/Gaza
Egyptian government officials on Saturday inspected the preparations for the delivery of relief aid into the neighbouring Gaza Strip, a day before a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas is set to go into effect.
Egypt’s ministers of health and social solidarity inspected the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and a logistics area where about 600 aid trucks are stationed, local officials said. Both ministers toured hospitals and medical facilities in North Sinai, readied to receive the wounded from Gaza, Egypt’s state-linked al-Qahera News broadcaster reported.
They also inspected the equipment of the Egyptian Red Crescent and its logistical warehouses.
Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghafar said Egypt is ready to receive the injured Palestinians leaving Gaza in the coming days. In May last year, Israel took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, in an operation that halted aid deliveries via the vital facility into the heavily populated coastal strip.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has said 50 fuel trucks will enter Gaza. Abdelatty said Egypt is providing for "the entry of 600 trucks per day to the Strip, including 50 trucks of fuel”.
"We hope that 300 trucks will go to the north of the Gaza Strip,” Abdelatty said at a joint news conference with his Nigerian counterpart.
For months, the northern part of Gaza has been under intense Israeli bombardment, killing and displacing thousands of people and worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.
Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson at UNICEF, has said the mobilisation of aid supplies to Gaza has "already started”.
"For UNICEF, we have 1,300 truckloads of goods that we could bring in, 700 truckloads of goods that would be set to follow immediately. We’re not alone, [other] humanitarian actors have mobilised to have these supplies ready,” Bollen told Al Jazeera from the al-Mawasi refugee camp in Gaza. Many families fled Gaza City in the north to come to al-Mawasi, she said, and "they would like to [go back] to their homes.”
"We can expect a population movement that will be chaotic from the south to the north and that also requires the centre of gravity of the humanitarian operation to adjust and move along with the population,” Bollen added.