People walk past trucks loaded with aid for Gaza, waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing in Rafah. AFP
The deliveries, part of the Zad El-Ezza: From Egypt to Gaza initiative launched in late July, come amid worsening famine in the territory under Israel’s deadly five-month blockade.
Overall, Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has killed nearly 62,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing on 7 May 2024 shut down its Palestinian side, forcing aid to be rerouted through the Israeli-controlled Karm Abu Salem crossing.
Thousands of trucks remain stranded in Egypt pending Israeli clearance, with more than 5,000 waiting at Rafah alone.
Since October 2023, Egypt has delivered over 70 percent of all aid reaching Gaza: 45,125 trucks carrying 500,000 tonnes, of which 368,000 tonnes came directly from Egypt and 132,000 from other countries.
Seventeen convoys have entered Gaza since 27 July despite repeated Israeli obstruction.
Accusations that Cairo has blocked aid are “a big lie,” foreign minister Badr Abdelatty told CNN on Monday, saying Israel alone controls Rafah’s Palestinian terminal, which its forces have destroyed four times.
“They are physically there, preventing any truck or person from moving in,” he said.
On Sunday, Egypt’s foreign ministry reiterated its rejection of any attempt to displace Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank, whether by force or “through policies of starvation, land confiscation, settlement expansion and rendering life untenable.”
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