Egypt to briefly re-open border with Gaza

by Zeynep Tufekci

CAIRO

Egyptian authorities on Sunday will reopen the Rafah border crossing with the blockaded Gaza Strip for two days, Palestine's Embassy in Cairo announced Thursday.

According to the embassy’s statement, the terminal will remain open for two days on Aug. 27-28 in both directions to allow those stranded and humanitarian cases to cross.

The terminal will open for the Eid al-Adha holiday, one of the two most significant celebrations in the Islamic calendar.

Israel has blockaded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea since 2007. It has seven border crossings linking it to the outside world.

Six of these are controlled by Israel, while the seventh -- the Rafah crossing -- is controlled by Egypt, which has kept it tightly sealed for the most part since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, in a 2013 military coup.