Thousands of Palestinian travelers gathered at Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt on Thursday hoping for a brief chance to leave after Cairo temporarily opened a frontier it largely keeps closed as it battles an Islamist insurgency on the other side.
It will be the first time the crossing has been opened this year. Located on the besieged territory’s southern border, Egypt announced Rafah will be open in both directions for two days.
Khalil Qeshta, 45, said medical treatment in Gaza had not helped his son, who has been suffering for months from a debilitating stomach condition causing him to vomit blood.
“I’ll go to Egypt at my own expense,” he said. “My son is five-years-old and he’s been sick for more than two years. We tried all the ways and means in Gaza, but there is no treatment. This is the third time I have tried to travel. I hope to be one of the lucky ones today.”
One student said he had been accepted to study engineering in Turkey but missed the course start date in September. He hopes to make it for the second term, which has already started.
Some 30,000 Gazans including medical patients, students and businesspeople are on a waiting list to travel through Rafah. But not all are guaranteed.
For the majority of the past three years, Egypt has upheld an Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip that began in 2007.
> Shiuly Akter
