Israel-Hamas War Some Injured Palestinians and Foreign Passport Holders Cross to Egypt

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Source: NY Times

The Rafah border opened for the first such crossings since the war began and state TV showed the first group of people arriving in Egypt. Hundreds of people were expected to leave Gaza on Wednesday, officials said.

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Some foreign passport holders and seriously injured Palestinians arrived in Egypt on Wednesday, Egyptian state TV said, as the Gaza border opened for the first such crossings since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel.

Three critically injured people from Gaza arrived at an Egyptian hospital near the border, a hospital official said. And Egyptian state TV showed what it said was a group of foreign passport holders carrying luggage on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, where they were to have documents checked.

The crossings came after a deal negotiated late Tuesday among Israel, Egypt, Hamas, the United States and Qatar. Egypt was set to receive hundreds of people on Wednesday, according to Western diplomats in Cairo and Jerusalem and the Gaza authorities.

The Rafah crossing has been the focus of heated international negotiations as the only possible escape route, as well as the only entry point for relief supplies, as Israel retaliated for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas by starting a three-week bombing campaign and sending troops deep into Gaza. The toll of Israeli strikes in Gaza deepened on Tuesday when Hamas and hospital officials said that many people had been killed or injured in an Israeli airstrike on the Jabaliya neighborhood. On Wednesday, the Gazan interior ministry said that another airstrike in the same area had killed and injured more people.

Early Wednesday, Gaza’s two million residents appeared to have been once again plunged into a communication blackout. The strip’s main telecommunications provider said around 4 a.m. that its services had been disrupted. Over the weekend, as Israel began its ground invasion, residents endured a panic-inducing 34-hour blackout, cut off from the outside world and each other and unable to contact emergency services.

Here’s what else to know:

Israel said its strike on Tuesday in the Jabaliya area, home to Gaza’s largest refugee camp, had successfully targeted Hamas militants, including a commander who was central to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,400 people. A Hamas spokesman denied that a commander had been in the area. Nearly 8,800 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to the Gazan health ministry.

American citizens are not expected to be among Wednesday’s evacuees, other than those working for certain aid groups, but they are slated to follow in batches later in the week, three of the diplomats said. A U.S. State Department email sent to U.S. citizens in Gaza said “limited departures from Gaza may begin this week.”

Israeli forces continued to press deeper into Gaza on Tuesday, reaching the Al Karama neighborhood north of Gaza City and advancing toward a major highway that runs through the enclave, the Gazan interior ministry said. The Hamas-run ministry said Israel’s military appeared to be seeking “to separate the northern Gaza Strip from its south.”

The Pentagon said that American commandos were on the ground in Israel to help locate the more than 200 hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, plans to travel to Israel on Friday to meet with Israeli government officials before going to other countries in the region, the State Department said.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/11/01/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news