Egypt is ready to receive 7,000 refugees fleeing Gaza

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Thursday in a statement that Egypt will help evacuate about 7,000 foreign nationals from the neighboring Gaza Strip, which has been under Israel’s intense bombardments and blockade since Oct. 7.

Egypt’s Assistant Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs Ismail Khairat met with foreign ambassadors and diplomats in Cairo on Wednesday, briefing them on Egypt’s efforts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and assist the departure of foreign nationals through the Rafah crossing, said the statement.

Khairat said Egypt was ready to “facilitate the reception and evacuation of foreign citizens from Gaza through the Rafah crossing,” referring to “about 7,000 foreign citizens holding the nationalities of more than 60 countries,” according to the statement.

For the first time since the beginning of the recent Israeli siege on Gaza, the Rafah crossing, the only border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian enclave, received on Wednesday hundreds of foreign passport holders and tens of wounded Palestinians from Gaza to be treated at Egyptian hospitals.

Egypt has been criticizing Israel’s attempts to push over a million Gazans to relocate southward and has previously reiterated its rejection of the influx of Palestinian refugees into the country’s Sinai Peninsula through the Rafah border crossing.