CAIRO
Egypt will allow a medical convoy organized by the Cairo-based Arab Doctors Union into the embattled Gaza Strip, the head of the union said Friday, amid a deadly Israeli onslaught on the strip – in which 100 Gazans have already been killed – that began late Monday.
"The convoy organized by the [Arab Medical] Union has obtained permission from the Egyptian authorities to cross into Gaza on Saturday," union chief Mohamed Abbas told Anadolu Agency.
Abbas said that five trucks loaded with medical supplies had already arrived in Arish city near the Egypt-Gaza Rafah border crossing.
The crossing was closed again on Friday after Egyptian authorities had opened it for several hours the previous day to receive injured Palestinians for treatment in Egypt.
According to Abbas, physicians who have volunteered to accompany the convoy are now in the process of obtaining permission from the Egyptian authorities in hopes of crossing into Gaza this Saturday.
The pan-Arab doctors' union, established in 1962, has organized international relief convoys since 2002.
Egypt army to send aid supplies to Gaza
The Egyptian army has decided to send 500 tons of food and medical supplies to the next-door Gaza Strip, which continued to reel under a fierce Israeli air offensive on Friday, Egypt's state news agency reported on Friday.
Defense Minister Sedki Sobhi ordered the aid supplies sent through Egypt's Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, which the self-proclaimed Jewish state has pounded with hundreds of airstrikes since Monday night.
Earlier Friday, Egyptian authorities re-sealed the border crossing after having opened it for several hours on Thursday to injured Gazans seeking treatment in Egypt.
In a statement issued two days ago, the Egyptian presidency said Egypt was holding contacts with all parties in an effort to halt Israeli military aggression and stop what it described as "provocative" measures.
Both United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said earlier this week – in separate statements – that they had urged Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to mediate a ceasefire to the crisis in the Gaza Strip, where at least 103 Palestinians have been killed since the operation was launched late Monday.
Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been the traditional mediator between Palestinian resistance factions and Israel, who refuse to recognize one another.
Abbas has said that he urged al-Sisi to ask the Israelis to abide by a 2012 ceasefire deal brokered by Cairo – under then-president Mohamed Morsi – between Hamas and Israel.
That ceasefire followed an eight-day Israeli onslaught against Gaza that had left scores of Palestinians dead.
On Tuesday, Israel launched a military offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" – with the stated aim of staunching rocket fire from Gaza.
Gaza-based resistance factions, for their part, have continued to fire rockets into Israel in response to ongoing Israeli airstrikes.
No Israeli fatalities have been reported thus far, however, with Israel's anti-missile defense systems intercepting numerous Gaza rockets, some of which have reached Tel Aviv.
The latest escalations come amid heightened tension over the killing of three teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank last month and the subsequent murder of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy by Jewish extremists.
By Islam Mosaad, Hussein Qabani
www.aa.com.tr
