The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has opened for the first time in more than three weeks of brutal conflict to allow the evacuation of dozens of injured Palestinians requiring hospital treatment and hundreds of foreign passport holders.
Witnesses at the border on the Gaza side saw scores of people and cars hurrying to get through the gates towards the Egyptian side through the damaged terminal area, some carrying their belongings. Ambulances whisked away the wounded to Egyptian field hospitals, including one young boy with heavy bandaging around his stomach.
By late Wednesday, at least 335 dual nationals and 76 injured seriously wounded and sick people had crossed the border, with more expected to follow.
The limited evacuations occurred as Israeli forces continued to bomb the Palestinian enclave from land, sea and air as they pressed their offensive against Hamas militants. Another blast shook Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, on Wednesday, a day after Palestinian health officials said an Israeli airstrike killed about 50 people and wounded 150 there. Israel said it killed a Hamas commander in the attack.
A Jordanian citizen, Umm Saleh Hussein, one of those who made it into Egypt, said water and electricity shortages were “the least” of the hardships people in Gaza were facing. “There were bigger problems such as the bombardment. We were afraid. Many families were martyred,” she told Agence France-Presse.
Another Jordanian citizen, Saleh Hussein, said she had received word in the middle of the night that she was on the list for evacuation.
Those cleared to leave on Wednesday included citizens and dual passport holders from Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Indonesia, Japan and Jordan, as well as staff members from several aid organisations.
Only a handful of Americans crossed, all employed by international organisations. The US president, Joe Biden, said in a post on X – formerly Twitter – that he “expect[ed] to see more depart over the coming days”.
On Wednesday evening the UK Foreign Office said a first group of British nationals had entered Egypt. The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, called the crossing “a hugely important first step”.
“We are working with Egyptian and Israeli authorities to ensure the crossing stays open so all British nationals can get to safety in the coming days,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Not everyone who had hoped to cross was allowed to enter Egypt. Umm Yussef, a dual Palestinian-Egyptian national, told AFP on the Gaza side: “We are overwhelmed … Have mercy on us. We are Egyptians and can’t cross into our country. Let us in. We are exhausted. We can’t sleep or eat.”
The opening of the crossing was negotiated between Egypt, Israel and Hamas, in coordination with the US, after the intervention of Qatar, which mediated in the talks.
There was no indication of how long the crossing would remain open, although other openings have been suggested in the coming days. There has been increasing international pressure to open Rafah on humanitarian grounds.
Though more than 200 trucks carrying desperately needed aid have crossed into Gaza from Egypt, before Wednesday no one had been allowed to flee the battered territory. Foreign governments say there are passport holders from 44 countries, as well as 28 agencies, including UN bodies, living in the Gaza Strip, where 2.4 million people have endured more than three weeks of unrelenting Israeli bombardment since 7 October.
The evacuations began as a senior Hamas official on Wednesday said the hostages being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip were subject to the same risk of “death and destruction” that Palestinians have faced.
Hamas claimed earlier that seven hostages, including three foreign passport holders, were killed on Tuesday in Israeli strikes on the Jabalia camp in Gaza that caused dozens of fatalities.
Ismail Haniyeh, the chair of Hamas’s political bureau, explicitly linked a ceasefire to negotiations for the release of the hostages.
Israel said 240 Israelis and foreign nationals were being held in Gaza after being taken hostage during the rampage by Hamas through southern Israel on 7 October that killed 1,400 people, most of whom were Israeli civilians. Israel also said it had lost 15 of its soldiers in combat in recent days since its ground offensive into Gaza started.
Palestinians reported another widespread outage of internet and phone service in Gaza on Wednesday, hours after Israeli airstrikes levelled apartment buildings near Gaza City and as ground troops fought Hamas inside the besieged territory.
The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel reported a “complete disruption” of internet and mobile phone services in Gaza, marking the second time in five days that residents were largely cut off from the world. Communications also went down over the weekend, as Israeli troops pushed into Gaza in larger numbers.
A medical official in the Egyptian city of Arish told AFP that medical teams would be present at the Rafah crossing to examine cases and determine which hospitals people would be sent to.
The medical official added that a field hospital with an area of 1,300 sq metres would be built to receive wounded Palestinians in the city of Sheikh Zuweid in northern Sinai, about 10 miles (16km) from Rafah.
The US had made “real progress” in the last few hours in negotiations to secure a safe passage for hundreds of Americans and other foreign nationals who wished to leave Gaza, the US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said.
“We would hope that any agreement to get any individuals out would also unlock the possibility of American citizens or their families and other foreign nationals coming out,” he added. Miller said the US would inform its citizens in Gaza to head to Rafah “as soon as we have actionable information”.
On Wednesday, the BBC reported that the UK Foreign Office had informed British nationals trapped in Gaza that Rafah might open for limited exits. The US has been working with Qatar and Egypt to open the crossing to allow American citizens to leave.
The Israeli national security council chief, Tzachi Hanegbi, told reporters Israel was speaking to Egypt about the injured people but made it clear there was still a dispute on aid deliveries, with Egypt wanting to let more trucks into Gaza but Israel saying it was limited to searching dozens of vehicles a day.
The US, which has backed Israel but pressed for greater humanitarian considerations, has voiced hopes that 100 trucks a day could go through Rafah.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, would visit Israel on Friday for meetings with members of the government and then make other stops in the region, the department said.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
