Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday morning for the second of three days during which Egypt decided to open the terminal for humanitarian cases. According to the Palestinian borders and crossings committee, 325 passengers left Gaza to travel to Egypt on Saturday, including holders of Egyptian passports. In addition, 183 passengers arrived to Gaza from Egypt through the crossing. The committee highlighted that two Palestinians who died in Egypt were brought to Gaza for burial via Rafah. Egyptian authorities denied 11 Palestinians entry into Egypt on Saturday, the reasons for the denials being unknown. more

Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday after four days of opening it in both directions. The Gaza borders and crossings committee said that 2,624 Palestinians were permitted to leave the besieged coastal enclave during the four days, including humanitarian cases and Egyptian passport holders. The committee added that the Gaza Strip received 3,095 Palestinians returning to the small Palestinian territory, while Egyptian authorities denied passage to 203 passengers for unspecified reasons. The crossing initially opened on Saturday for three days, but Egyptian authorities decided on Monday to keep the crossing open on Tuesday. Two travelers died “of natural causes” at the crossing on Sunday, the Palestinian border committee said on Monday, without providing further details on the circumstances surrounding the deaths. However, many of the Palestinians who are given priority to leave the blockaded Palestinian enclave are see...

Two travelers died “of natural causes” at the Rafah crossing on Sunday, on the second of a three-day opening of the border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian border committee said in a statement. The committee did not provide further details on the circumstances surrounding the deaths, nor was it clear whether the deceased were entering or exiting Gaza. However, many of the Palestinians who are given priority to leave the blockaded Palestinian enclave seek medical treatment abroad. The committee added that some 685 Palestinians were able to leave the besieged Palestinian territory on Sunday, while 1,340 travelers crossed into Gaza. The committee added that Egyptian authorities denied entrance to 40 Palestinians for unknown reasons. Egypt opened Rafah crossing on Saturday after 38 days of closure, announcing the crossing would be opened for a total of three days for humanitarian cases. Egypt has upheld an Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip since the...

Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning after it operated for five consecutive days, allowing “humanitarian cases” to pass through in both directions. Gaza's borders and crossings committee said in a statement on Sunday that 2,664 passengers, the majority of whom were humanitarian cases, were able to leave the besieged Gaza Strip to Egypt during the five day opening. In addition to approved humanitarian cases, holders of Egyptian passports were among the passengers who left from Gaza to Egypt. The statement added that 1,443 passengers traveled to the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities denied 362 passengers entry to the Gaza Strip without providing explanation. more

GAZA (Ma’an) -- Egyptian authorities temporarily opened the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip on Tuesday to allow a number of Palestinian worshipers through on their way to Saudi Arabia to perform the annual Muslim pilgrimage of Hajj. Egypt decided to open the crossing for three days in order for some 2,008 Gazan pilgrims who were able to obtain visas to use the Cairo airport to travel to Mecca. However, procedures for Palestinians to return to Gaza following their pilgrimage were still undetermined on Tuesday. Egypt has upheld an Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip for the majority of the past three years, since the ouster of President Muhammad Morsi in 2013 and the rise to power of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt. While the Egyptian border has remained the main lifeline for Gazans to the outside world, Egyptian authorities have slowly sealed off movement through the border since Morsi was toppled by the Egyptian army. more

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned on Thursday the Israeli government’s decision to built hundreds of housing units in illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. The ministry slammed Israel’s continuous building of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory -- in contravention of international law -- and obstruction of the peace process. The Egyptian government urged the Israeli government to “cancel the decision and put an end to the policy of escalation, which kills the hopes of Palestinians.” On Sunday, the Israeli government approved the construction of 140 homes in the settlement of Ramot in occupied East Jerusalem and 100 for the Har Homa settlement in southeastern Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman also approved plans to construct 560 new housing units for Jewish Israelis in the illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, as far-right lawmakers also announced their intentions to introduce legislation t...

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Egyptian authorities on Sunday morning opened the Rafah border crossing for the fourth day for the travel of a limited number of passengers. Only 10 buses carrying a total of 1,008 passengers had left Gaza yesterday through the Rafah crossing. According to the border and crossings authority in Gaza, five ambulances carrying a number of wounded and sick citizens also crossed into the Egyptian side on Saturday. Last Thursday, 369 Palestinian passengers, who were stranded in Egypt, were able to enter Gaza, while the Egyptian authorities rejected the travel requests of 40 others and prevented them from leaving Gaza. more

Egyptian authorities have decided to temporarily reopen the Rafah crossing with the besieged Gaza Strip for four days, the Palestinian borders and crossings committee announced on Tuesday. The committee said that the Rafah crossing would reopen in both directions on Wednesday for four days. The reopening would affect humanitarian cases and emergencies. Egypt has only opened the Rafah crossing on a sporadic basis in recent years. Earlier in May, it reopened the crossing for two days, with only several hundred of the more than 30,000 passengers registered to cross making it through. more

Egyptian authorities reopened the Rafah crossing with the besieged Gaza Strip for the second day in a row on Thursday, after an 85-day closure. The Gaza crossings committee said that 443 Palestinians were able to enter Egypt on Wednesday, while an untold number of Palestinians stuck abroad were able to re-enter the Gaza Strip. Seven buses and several ambulances were also admitted through the crossing during the day, according to the committee. Priority was given to Egyptian passport holders, humanitarian cases, students and Palestinians with foreign residency. Egyptian authorities also allowed cement trucks to enter the Palestinian side via the crossing. The Gaza Ministry of Interior said on Wednesday that the two-day opening was too short a time to process the more than 30,000 passengers registered to cross and waiting for their turn, including humanitarian cases, students who attend schools abroad, patients in need of treatment outside of Gaza, and visa holders who live and work ...

Seven Palestinians were rescued during a search operation in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah city on Thursday after Egyptian authorities allegedly flooded a tunnel where workers were present, Palestinian security sources said. While seven workers were rescued from the tunnel, Gazan authorities are still looking for one more worker thought to be stuck inside the tunnel. Palestinian security sources said the tunnel was flooded when Egyptian authorities pumped seawater into the structure. Last month, Egyptian authorities destroyed another tunnel on the border of the Gaza Strip, with no injuries reported. Palestinians in Gaza have relied on underground smuggling tunnels across the Egyptian border since 2007 when Israel imposed a military blockade on the coastal enclave after Hamas took control there. The tunnels have since provided a vital lifeline for the besieged territory's more than 1.8 million residents. However, Egypt has destroyed and flooded hundreds of the tunnels as part of an o...

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip gathered in the southern city of Khan Younis after the Egyptian authorities in a rare move on Saturday decided to open the Rafah crossing to Egypt. It will be the first time the crossing has been opened this year. Located on the besieged strip’s southern border, Egypt announced Rafah will be open in both directions for two days. Gaza’s Ministry of Interior told Ma’an that 765 Palestinians had been approved to travel on Saturday. According to authorities in Gaza, over 25,000 people with urgent needs -- including around 3,500 medical cases -- are registered and waiting to cross. Only a fraction of those registered and waiting are likely to gain passage through the crossing. Following the announcement, hundreds of Palestinians filtered south to the Abu Yousif An-Najjar sports center, where the ministry typically checks and selects Gaza residents for travel to Egypt. more

It was extremely difficult for Maher Shawa to accept that the two-day window during which the Rafah crossing opened for humanitarian cases earlier this month had closed before he could get through. The 67-year-old is in urgent need of heart surgery. He was due to receive treatment, he said, in a Jordanian hospital, where he’d had a first operation in 2004. “I have my papers completed, and I should have been able to cross the border this time,” Shawa, who spent six years in Israeli prison, said. “I am dying here.” Shawa is among the thousands of priority cases who have applied for permission to leave Gaza for medical treatment or study abroad, or because they hold foreign passports. But Egypt has kept Rafah crossing — the sole point of exit and entry for the vast majority of the 1.8 million Palestinians in tiny Gaza — almost entirely closed since October 2014. Majed Lola and his wife had stayed at the terminal for three consecutive nights in cold weather in order to cross. T...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Gazan Civil Defense rescue teams on Tuesday morning were battling to save the lives of 14 Palestinians who went missing inside a smuggling tunnel when Egyptian military forces flooded it with seawater. Muhammad al-Meidana, a Civil Defense official, told Ma'an that rescue teams had been able to save the lives of seven tunnel workers, but that contact was lost with 14 others, who were now missing. Initial reports that the Civil Defense had established contact with these 14 workers turned out to be false. Smuggling tunnels that pass beneath the Egyptian border have served as a lifeline to the outside world for Gaza's 1.8 million inhabitants since Israel imposed a crippling siege on the coastal enclave in 2007, which is supported by Egypt. While the tunnels are used by Hamas as a source of tax revenue and inflow of weapons, they also supply necessary goods for Gazans including food, medicine, as well as infrastructure materials including concrete and fu...

Egyptian authorities on Friday re-sealed the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, upholding a near-permanent closure of the border this year, Egyptian security sources said. Egyptian security sources told Ma’an that the crossing was closed after Egyptian authorities permitted Palestinian movement through the border for two days. Around 628 Palestinians passed from Gaza into Egypt on Thursday, and 259 from Egypt to Gaza, the sources said. Egyptian authorities also released 34 Palestinian prisoners who had been held in Egyptian jails under charges of “illegal infiltration” of Egypt borders, the sources told Ma’an. Dozens of trucks passed through the crossing during the rare two-day window, carrying medical supplies and materials for reconstruction of the strip, still devastated from Israel’s 2014 offensive that left tens of thousands homeless. more

?Egyptian army forces shot and injured three Palestinians in a smuggling tunnel under the city of Rafah in southern Gaza on Thursday. Egyptian soldiers entered the tunnel under the border city and opened fire at Palestinian workers, injuring three, locals said. The victims were taken to hospital for treatment. Earlier this week, Egypt detained three Palestinians after blowing up a tunnel under the shared border. The Palestinians were initially reported missing after the explosion. Smuggling tunnels that pass beneath the Egyptian border have served as a lifeline to the outside world for Gaza's 1.8 million inhabitants since Israel imposed a crippling siege on the coastal enclave in 2007, which is supported by Egypt. more

Khan Yunis (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Hamas on Thursday accused Egypt of further besieging the Gaza Strip by flooding the border area to the south of the Palestinian enclave, which is already under an Israeli blockade. Egypt has been carrying out digging work in the area for several weeks that Palestinians believe is intended to flood the last remaining tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai, where jihadist fighters have been battling Egyptian forces. Palestinians fear such moves will further isolate Gaza, where more than 100,000 were left homeless in last summer's war with Israel and which is blockaded by the Jewish state. Egyptian officials have declined to comment on the work criticised by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, where residents have reported water seeping over the border. "Why are they digging those trenches and those water pipes around Rafah?" Hamas's chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said during a speech to commem...

CAIRO (AFP) -- Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused Egypt's military of having "violated international law" through mass home demolitions and evictions over the past two years along its border with Gaza. Egypt's army in October created a wide buffer zone in the border town of Rafah in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where it says tunnels have allowed militants and weapons in from the Palestinian enclave. "The large-scale destruction of at least 3,255 buildings in Rafah to counter the threat of smuggling tunnels was likely disproportionate and did not meet Egypt's obligations under international human rights law or the laws of war," HRW said. Since July 2013 "the military has arbitrarily razed thousands of homes in a once-populated buffer zone on the border with the Gaza Strip, destroying entire neighborhoods and hundreds of hectares (acres) of farmland," the New York-based rights watchdog said. Egypt has stepped up its battle against mil...

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) – The Egyptian authorities on Sunday notified the Gazan Ministry of Interior that the Rafah border crossing would be open for three days starting Monday to allow Gazans to leave for the holy Muslim Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia's Mecca, Gazan officials said. The Hamas-run Ministry of Interior said in a statement that the Egyptian authorities would only allow pilgrims access through the terminal. The Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to the outside world, has been virtually closed since October 2014, allowing only a fraction of Gazans to leave or enter the blockaded enclave. Last month Egyptian authorities opened the crossing for four days, allowing 2,579 humanitarian cases to leave Gaza while 3,178 people were permitted entry to the coastal enclave. In late June, Egyptian authorities agreed to keep the crossing open for a week, the longest period so far this year. The 1.8 million residents of the Gaza Strip have lived under a strict Israeli blockad...

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah crossing with Gaza on Friday after it had been open for four days to allow emergency cases through, a Gaza official said. Iyam al-Bazem, spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, said that 2,579 humanitarian cases left Gaza while 3,178 people entered the coastal territory. Egypt prevented 146 Palestinians from leaving Gaza, he added. Some 17,000 Palestinians need to urgently leave the territory, either for medical treatment or to continue their studies abroad, al-Bazem said. Egypt did not indicate when the crossing would next be opened. The Rafah crossing, Gaza's only connection to the outside world, has been virtually closed since October 2014, allowing only a fraction of Gazans to leave or enter the blockaded enclave. more

The Hamas-run Ministry of the Interior in the Gaza Strip on Saturday sent an urgent request to the Egyptian authorities to open the Rafah crossing and allow humanitarian cases to exit the beleaguered coastal enclave. Iyad al-Buzm, a spokesperson for the ministry, said in a statement that conditions in Gaza represent a "humanitarian catastrophe," with up to 20,000 humanitarian cases and thousands of other Palestinians waiting to leave the territory. He warned that the continued closure of the border crossing into Egypt threatens the lives of hundreds of patients with cancer and heart and lung-related illnesses, who are in urgent need of operations. He said that it also threatens the future of thousands of students and holders of foreign passports. Al-Buzm said that the Egyptian authorities have only opened the Rafah crossing for 15 days since the beginning of this year. more