Cairo (Reuters) – Egyptian aid trucks moved closer on Tuesday to the only crossing into Gaza not controlled by Israel, but without an agreement in place to deliver relief and with the Palestinian side closed, it was unclear when they might pass through.
After nine hours of negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said early on Tuesday he had agreed with Israel to develop a plan to get aid into Gaza, but the time frame for any deliveries remained unclear.
At least 49 people were killed in an overnight Israeli bombardment of Rafah, where the crossing is situated, and the nearby town of Khan Younis, Gaza’s interior ministry said.
Later, aid workers gathered on the Egyptian side watched dark smoke from another apparent strike rising on the Gaza side, beyond a concrete border wall, according to footage shared with Reuters.
Egypt says the Rafah crossing, a vital artery before the fighting and now a key route for desperately needed supplies into the Israeli-besieged Palestinian enclave, has not been officially closed but has become inoperable due to the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza side.
Some people with dual citizenship who had gathered in recent days awaiting the opening of the Rafah crossing had begun approaching the border, but many said they were staying away due to the airstrikes.
Israel began its intense bombardment and siege of Gaza following a devastating assault by Islamist Hamas militants on Oct. 7.
Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been left without power, pushing health and water services to the brink of collapse, with fuel for hospital generators running low. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the Hamas-ruled strip.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it needed urgent access to Gaza to deliver aid and medical supplies.
Early on Tuesday some 160 trucks left al-Arish in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, where loads of aid have been awaiting an agreement on aid delivery, a witness told Reuters.
The trucks heading for the border contained Egyptian aid, and the international aid remained in warehouses in al-Arish, said Ahmed Salem of the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
Salem and another security source said Egypt had repaired roads within the crossing damaged by earlier Israeli strikes.
Negotiations
Blinken lobbied hard for a plan after leaders of the half-dozen Arab states that he toured in recent days all conveyed that getting aid into Gaza should be a top priority, a senior U.S. official said.
Both the U.S. and Israel were concerned that Hamas would seize or destroy the aid, Blinken said. This concern, along with fears that aid would be used as cover for weapons, hindered a planned delivery on Monday, two Egyptian security sources said.
An understanding was reached that the aid would be delivered to specific secure locations in Gaza under monitoring, the security sources said, in exchange for limited evacuations of foreign passport holders.
A senior U.S. official said such a plan had yet to be agreed.
The official said Biden’s newly appointed envoy for humanitarian affairs in the Middle East, David Satterfield, would meet Israeli officials on Tuesday and start hammering out the details of the plan.
Egypt and other Arab states oppose any plan by which large numbers of Palestinians would leave Gaza.
