6/19/2024–|Last updated: 6/19/202406:14 PM (Mecca time)
On Wednesday, a senior Egyptian source denied the validity of the reports circulating about Cairo’s agreement to participate with an Arab force to control the Gaza Strip crossings.
Cairo News Channel quoted the source as saying, “There is no truth to what some news sites are reporting about Egypt’s agreement to participate in a United Nations Arab force to control the crossings with the Gaza Strip.”
According to the channel, the source confirmed that Israel is responsible for closing the crossings with the Gaza Strip, and bears full responsibility for the deterioration of the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.
An official source had previously confirmed that “Israel is the one besieging the Gaza Strip, obstructing the exit of relief workers and the United Nations, and starving more than two million Palestinians.”
The source added to “Cairo News” that “Israel seeks to hold Egypt responsible for its aggression against the Gaza Strip and its occupation of the Palestinian Rafah crossing, and if it wishes to open the crossing, it must withdraw from it and stop its military operation there.”
He explained that Israel has a number of land crossings with the Gaza Strip, which it must open to bring in relief supplies and facilitate the movement of international organization staff from them.
Since the seventh of last May, Israel has controlled the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, which prompted Cairo to suspend coordination regarding it to not legitimize its occupation, and its adherence to the return of the Palestinian administration to manage it, as stipulated in the crossings agreement signed in 2005.
Due to Israel’s closure and disruption of the crossings, the Gaza Strip is witnessing a severe humanitarian crisis, amid international estimates that Gaza may witness famine in mid-July.
The Israeli war on Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 7, left more than 122,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and nearly 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of dozens of people.
Israel continues this war, ignoring two UN Security Council resolutions demanding that it stop the fighting immediately, and orders from the International Court of Justice to stop its attack on Rafah, and take immediate measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
