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Gaza’s health ministry said a group of 50 patients crossed from Rafah to reach Egypt.
The Rafah border crossing has opened for the first time in nearly nine months to allow sick and wounded Palestinian patients in Gaza to travel to Egypt for medical treatment.
Gaza’s health ministry on Saturday said a group of 50 patients crossed from Rafah to reach Egypt.
Egyptian television showed a Palestinian Red Cross ambulance pulling up to the crossing gate, and several children being brought out on to stretchers and being transferred to ambulances on the Egyptian side.
The reopening of the Rafah crossing represents a significant breakthrough that bolsters the ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas agreed to earlier this month.
Israel agreed to reopen the crossing after Hamas released the last living female captives in Gaza. The opening also comes on the heels of Hamas releasing three Israeli captives in Gaza earlier Saturday in exchange for more than 180 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
The children are the first in what are meant to be regular evacuations of Palestinians through the crossing for treatment abroad.
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Mohammed Zaqout, the director of hospitals in Gaza’s Health Ministry, said more than 6,000 patients were ready to be evacuated abroad, and more than 12,000 patients were in urgent need of treatment.
He said the small numbers set to be evacuated will not cover the need, “and we hope the number will increase.”
In Israel’s 15-month war on the enclave following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated, leaving most of its hospitals out of operation.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians wounded by Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives faced a huge gap in medical care.
Israeli forces closed the Rafah crossing in May 2024 after seizing it. Egypt followed suit by shutting down its side of the passage in protest.
Even prior to the Gaza war, Palestinians relied on the crossing heavily, routinely applying for permission to travel outside the territory for lifesaving treatments not available in enclave, including chemotherapy.
Management of the crossing has been mired with complexities.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using its control of the border to smuggle weapons – a claim Egypt has denied. Israel has also refused to allow the Palestinian Authority to officially take over management of the crossing.
Instead, the crossing will be staffed by Palestinians from Gaza who previously served as border officers with the PA, but they will not be allowed to wear official PA insignia, a European diplomat told the AP news agency anonymously.
European Union monitors will also be present, as they were before 2007.
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“It will support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care,” European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X, referring to its monitoring mission at the crossing.
