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Evacuees including foreign nationals have begun leaving Gaza via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel erupted more than three weeks ago.
Gaza border officials said that by early afternoon local time on Wednesday, 160 foreign nationals and 22 ambulances had been allowed to leave, while 20 aid trucks were permitted to enter the enclave.
The sick and wounded began to arrive at al-Arish hospital in northern Egypt, the country’s state-owned al-Qahera News channel reported.
Four people familiar with the situation said diplomats had discussed a plan to allow 500 foreign nationals to leave Gaza on Wednesday, and 1,000 a day thereafter, but cautioned that the situation could change.
A list of 500 foreign nationals permitted to leave was drawn up by Hamas officials and scrutinised by Israel. About 6,000 have been trapped inside the besieged coastal strip, which is sandwiched between Israel and Egypt.
Mahmoud Ahmed, a German citizen who was authorised to leave, had been visiting his sick mother in Gaza when the war erupted and was forced to move from the north to the south of the enclave.
“My sister was martyred and her body was not found under the rubble because there is no equipment,” he told the Financial Times. “The situation in Gaza is unbearable. It is hell with no food, no water, no electricity and no medicine.”
Ashraf al-Qudra, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, told al-Qahera News that an agreement had also been reached for 81 sick and wounded people to leave Gaza for treatment outside the strip but that “hundreds of thousands . . . need to go out”.
He added that the ministry was trying to send to Egypt patients who “are dangerous or complex cases for whom there is no treatment in Gaza and who can be transported”.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that it “welcomes Egypt’s decision to accept some injured and sick people from Gaza for treatment”.
The deal was brokered by Qatar, a western ally that hosts Hamas’s political office, according to a person briefed on the talks.
A person familiar with the situation said on Wednesday morning that the Egyptian authorities had not yet deployed enough staff to process all the evacuees arriving on their side of the border and that as a result, it would take hours for them to enter Egypt.
A spokesperson for the Egyptian health ministry said 40 ambulances were being dedicated to the operation to move the injured across the border, and that they would be treated in the hospitals of al-Arish, Bir al-Abd and Sheikh Zowaied in North Sinai.
Civil society organisations in Egypt have been contacted to offer their services to adults accompanying injured children, the spokesperson added.
Foreign governments have been working with Egypt to ensure safe passage from Gaza for foreign nationals and Palestinians with dual citizenship through Rafah ever since Israel launched its bombardment of the Hamas-controlled strip more than three weeks ago in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel, which killed approximately 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s bombardment has killed more than 8,500 people in Gaza and injured more than 21,500, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has also severely restricted supplies of electricity, water, fuel and food to Gaza, prompting UN officials to warn of a human catastrophe in the enclave.
On Wednesday morning, phone and internet services in Gaza were also cut off, with the telecoms company Paltel reporting a “complete disruption” of services in the enclave for the second time since the start of the war.
Israel said a further nine of its soldiers had been killed during its ground operation in Gaza.
There is deepening international concern over the impact of Israel’s military strikes in Gaza.
Jordan said on Wednesday it was recalling its ambassador from Israel. It added that the envoy would only return once Israel “stopped its war on Gaza” and had resolved “the humanitarian crisis it has caused”. It also said Israel’s ambassador to Jordan could only return once the same conditions were met.
In other signs of a diplomatic backlash against the war, Bolivia severed relations with Israel on Tuesday, while Chile and Colombia also withdrew their ambassadors.
The moves came after an Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp killed dozens of people. Israel said the strike had targeted a Hamas commander.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was “appalled by the high number of casualties” following the Israeli bombing of Jabalia. “The right to self-defence should always be balanced by the obligation to spare civilians to the greatest extent possible,” Borrell wrote on social media platform X.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that finding a way to help the 500 to 600 US citizens trapped in Gaza to leave was a top priority that continued to be stifled by Hamas.
“This is something we’re working on every single day,” Blinken said while testifying at a US Senate hearing in support of President Joe Biden’s $105bn supplementary budget request for Israel and Ukraine. “To date the impediment has been Hamas.”
Itayi Viriri, a spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration, told the FT that several member states had reached out to the UN agency “requesting support in the evacuation of hundreds of foreign nationals from Gaza”.
Additional reporting by Nic Fildes in Sydney, Henry Foy in Brussels, Mehul Srivastava in Tel Aviv, Donato Paolo Mancini in Athens and Andrew England in London
