Continuing War Casts Long Shadow Over Egypt-Gaza Border

Aid flights from the Gulf states, the European Union, and the United Nations' migration agency are unloaded inside Al-Arish airport, near the Egypt-Gaza border. Al-Arish, Egypt, Nov. 29, 2023.

Egyptian Red Crescent volunteers receive the life-saving shipments in Al-Arish as relief agencies worldwide warn of widespread hunger in aid-reliant Gaza and more civilian deaths from diseases than bombings.

Mohamed Hassan Nossier, a technical consultant with the Egyptian Red Crescent, says, “The aid [that has been entering Gaza] is only 10% of what is needed.”

Aid trucks wait at the Rafah border crossing, Egypt, the only operational route into Gaza. The lifeline was effectively cut after Hamas’ October attack, leaving over two million people with limited water, food, fuel, and medical supplies.

Saeed Badr, an aid truck driver, says, “The main problem is the [Israeli] crossing of Al-Awja: they don’t allow knives, sharp objects, and cooking gas cylinders, so we have to eat canned food.”

These gas cylinders belong to aid truck drivers who use them for cooking on-the-road meals but had to leave them behind, chained to this column, before entering the gates of the Rafah crossing, Egypt.

In recent weeks, Egypt says safe passage over its border with southern Gaza has been granted to 8,691 foreign and dual nationals and 395 critically wounded Palestinians, along with convoys of hostages freed by Hamas.

Ahmed Yossef and Saeed Al-Helow, two Palestinian medical evacuees from Gaza, receive treatment for a bombing-induced lung injury and deep torso lacerations, respectively, at a hospital in Al-Arish, Egypt.

The Israel-Hamas truce allowed for about 200 trucks with aid and basics to enter Gaza daily, or half the pre-war average of 500 trucks. But, from Oct. 21 to Nov. 30, 2023, Egypt says just 2,888 trucks crossed into the Strip via Rafah, Egypt.

Oxfam calls the now-expired truce brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States, “a band-aid to a bleeding wound,” with more than 80 percent of Gazans already displaced by deadly Israeli attacks from air, land, and sea.