Egypt’s Rafah border crossing will open from Monday to Thursday for Palestinians seeking to return to the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian embassy in Cairo said.

In a statement issued on the embassy’s official website late on Saturday, Palestinian ambassador to Cairo Diab Allouh thanked Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and the Egyptian authorities for their “constant and tireless efforts to alleviate the burdens on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

The Rafah border crossing is the main gateway to the outside world for around 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, and is the only crossing point not controlled by Israel.

Egypt opens the crossing periodically for humanitarian purposes.

In March, Hamas, which controls the enclave, said it would allow only patients requiring urgent medical treatment to cross into Egypt or Israel. Israel also closed its borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank to commercial traffic, with only patients and humanitarian staff allowed to cross.

At least 13 people have so far been infected by the coronavirus in the Palestinian enclave and 255 others in the West Bank, including two deaths.