Ismailia, EGYPT (Marwa Awad, Reuters)
Convoys carrying food and medical aid worth six million pounds ($1 million) sent by the Egyptian Red Crescent to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Monday await inspection at the Israeli controlled Karam Abu-Salem border crossing.
Mohamed Orabi, the head of the organization in North Sinai, told AlArabiya.net that five trucks were loaded with 40 tons of flour, 20 tons of rice and some medical supplies and sent to Gaza Strip.
An Egyptian official at the Rafah border crossing said Egyptian authorities had agreed with Israel to allow the trucks in on Monday however through the Karam Abu-Salem border so that Israel could ascertain that no weapons were being smuggled into the Strip.
An Egyptian cargo ship carrying aid is due to sail from Alexandria Port in the coastal city to the Gaza port on Tuesday to deliver further aid to Gazans. |
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Karam Abu Salem, not Rafah " Egypt controls the Rafah border crossing, so why not use it? In fact Rafah border is a much easier route than the Zionist controlled Karam Abu-Salem. " Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman, told AlArabiya.net that the Rafah border should have been the trucks' point of entry.
"Egypt controls the Rafah border crossing, so why not use it? In fact Rafah border is a much easier route than the Zionist controlled Karam Abu-Salem," he explained.
The Karam Abu Salem crossing border crossing is the meeting point of Egypt's, Israel's and Gaza's borders. It is about 14 kilometers south of the Rafah border between the Strip and Egypt.
"By allowing humanitarian aid through the Israeli controlled border, Egypt is officially acknowledging the illegal Israeli occupation," Barhoum said.
However Egypt's foreign ministry on Friday stated Egypt's position on the legal status of Gaza, defining it "as Palestinian territory that is still under Israeli occupation."
"Israel still controls the airspace and waters of the Gaza Strip, as well as most of its borders and access to the territory," it said in a statement.
"Under international law and the 4th Geneva Convention in particular, as the occupying power, Israel must ensure the basic needs of the inhabitants of the territory it occupies are met, such as electricity, water, fuel, food and medicine."
Egypt blamed Israel for the situation in Gaza as Islamist Hamas rulers refused to consider renewing the Cairo-mediated truce in and around the territory which ended on Friday.
The truce was practically non-existent since early November as series of tit-for-tat attacks involving Israeli raids against Islamist militants and showers of largely ineffective rockets fired into Israel from Gaza came to an end. |
