An Egyptian border post at Rafah in southern Gaza was opened on Saturday for the first time in 10 weeks for three days, the Islamic resistance movement of Hamas said.
The Palestinian Border Crossing Corporation (PBCC) also said Egypt opened its crossing point with the Gaza Strip at Rafah to allow around 8,000 stranded Palestinians to cross into Egypt.
"Around 8,000 Palestinians, including patients, students, businessmen and Palestinians holding other foreign nationalities will be crossing into Egypt starting from Saturday until Monday," the PBCC said in a statement.
The statement said that a total of 17 buses, 6 for people needing medical treatment, and 11 for holders of foreign passports, were scheduled to pass through the terminal Saturday.
The PBCC, which comes under the authority of the Hamas administration ruling the coastal strip, expressed the hope that reopening the crossing would "would ease the suffering of the population due to more than three years of a tight blockade had been imposed in the Gaza Strip."
Since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing mostly shut, opening it only sporadically for rare humanitarian reasons. The crossing is the enclave's only entry to, and exit from, the Strip which does not pass through Israel, which has imposed its own blockade on the Strip.
The 1.5 million residents of the impoverished Gaza Strip have largely relied on a network of tunnels under the Egyptian border since Israel and Egypt tightened an already strict closure.
Most of the tunnels are used to bring in basic goods such as food, household appliances and livestock; however Israel accuses Hamas and other resistance groups of using more secret tunnels to bring in arms and money.
Egypt is building an underground wall in a bid to curb smuggling, which it views as a security risk.
[Source: Al-ManarTV]
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