Still no aid for Gaza: Palestine, Israel deny agreement was reached to allow passage across Egypt-Gaza border

Nine am came and went at the border between Egypt and Gaza this morning, and the Rafah border crossing remained closed to the humanitarian convoys waiting on the Egyptian side to deliver support to the strip’s besieged population. On the Palestinian side of the border, foreign nationals remained waiting to exit Gaza into Egypt.

Despite reports that an agreement had been reached to open the crossing, which circulated on Sunday night citing anonymous Egyptian sources, no movement has yet taken place across the border since last week, when it was closed following several airstrikes.

Instead, the government media office in Gaza and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office denied on Monday morning that an agreement was reached to impose a temporary ceasefire and allow aid to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt.

The 2.2 million residents of Gaza are entering their seventh day completely cut off from water, food, fuel and electricity, while a humanitarian crisis grows in the wake of the war that broke out nine days ago. Israel continues its unprecedented assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, which has killed 2,670 people so far and injured over 9,000. The Israeli airstrikes have pummeled the besieged enclave since Hamas launched a surprise operation on October 7, killing 1,300 people. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Sunday that, due to the conditions, it was no longer able to provide its services in Gaza, where around 60 percent of people depend on food aid.

Director of the government media office in Gaza Salama Maarouf said on Monday that he has received “no contact or confirmation” from responsible authorities on the Egyptian side regarding an intention to open the Rafah crossing on Monday.

A member of Hamas’s political office and head of its central media office, Ezzat al-Rishq, also denied reports that a ceasefire agreement had been reached and that the Rafah crossing would be opened, a statement of which Mada Masr reviewed a copy.

The Israeli prime minister’s office also said on Monday morning that there is currently “no truce and humanitarian aid in Gaza in exchange for getting foreigners out.”

Anonymous Egyptian security sources cited in global and regional outlets reported that an agreement had been reached by both sides for a temporary ceasefire in southern Gaza, set to last five hours to allow for the evacuation of foreigners stranded in Gaza and the delivery of aid through the Rafah border crossing starting at 9 am Cairo time.

And while Reuters quoted Egyptian security sources confirming the entry of the ceasefire into effect, sources informed Mada Masr otherwise.

A source in the administration of North Sinai Governorate, speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said that the governorate “has not received instructions to reopen the crossing yet,” while a source at the North Sinai branch of the Red Crescent confirmed that humanitarian aid is still stocked in the branch's warehouses and the Arish sports stadium, and they have not received instructions to transfer it to the crossing.

At the Egypt-Gaza border, aid from Jordan, Turkey and the World Health Organization has arrived at Arish Airport to cross into Gaza via Rafah, as well as convoys sent under the Egyptian government’s Tahya Misr initiative and other humanitarian and charitable organizations. But all the aid has been stuck waiting, with the border crossing closed.

Allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza was a key point communicated by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Sunday one-on-one between the two leaders in Cairo. “It is very important to reduce the flame and make sure that we deliver the assistance needed to [Gaza] under siege, where it is completely deprived of the basic services – food, water, electricity, and fuel,” the president stressed.

Though the US told foreign nationals to move toward Rafah in order to be evacuated from the strip on Saturday, Egypt refused to open the border for them, according to reports citing anonymous Egyptian officials this weekend, without first striking a deal on the delivery of humanitarian aid to support the population of the enclave that has been completely cut off from food, fuel and electricity for eight days.

A UN source speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity said that there is not yet consensus over how the aid should be delivered, with the United Nations insisting that it should deliver the aid itself due to security considerations instead of delegating the Red Crescent.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza has deteriorated since Israel issued instructions to the population of Gaza to evacuate the entire northern part of the enclave, home to around 1.1 million people, as it appeared to prepare for an imminent ground campaign.

“As I speak to you now, there is no water or electricity. Gaza is suffocating while the world seems to have lost its humanity,” said UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini on Sunday night.

The UNRWA said it stopped providing humanitarian assistance to residents of Gaza on Sunday as it was unable to continue doing so under the chaos caused by continued Israeli airstrikes on the strip.