The UN has welcomed the reopening of Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt after nearly two years of closure, stressing the need to allow safe civilian movement.<\/p>\n
“I can tell you that we welcome the reopening of the Rafah crossing,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference on Monday, adding that “civilians must be allowed to leave and return voluntarily and safely, as international law requires.”<\/p>\n
He also noted: “Ultimately, essential humanitarian supplies must enter in sufficient quantities and with fewer restrictions through Rafah and all other crossings.”<\/p>\n
Separately, UN relief chief Tom Fletcher, in a post through US social media company X, said: “Partial reopening of Rafah crossing for people to leave and return to Gaza is welcome.”<\/p>\n
“But this is not enough \u2014 it must function as real humanitarian corridor so we can surge lifesaving help,” Fletcher added.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing began operating on a trial basis on Sunday after being completely closed for more than 18 months because of Israeli restrictions.<\/p>\n
Israel has controlled the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing since May 2024, during its genocidal war in Gaza that began in October 2023.<\/p>\n
Dujarric also reported that the World Health Organisation (WHO) supported medical evacuation efforts from Gaza on Monday.<\/p>\n
“The limited re-opening of Rafah crossing allowed some patients and their companions to exit directly to Egypt, while others transited through the Israeli-controlled Karem Shalom crossing,” he said, adding that the “last medical evacuation through Rafah crossing was in May 2024,” as he cited the WHO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UN has welcomed the reopening of Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt after nearly two years of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-270868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}