CAIRO: A total of 3,755 people have used the Rafah border crossing since it was opened Saturday, director of the border crossing in the Gaza Strip, Maher Abu Sabha said.
A total of 2,907 people have crossed into Egypt while 848 have crossed into the Palestinian enclave, according to Sabha.
The crossing will continue to operate Thursday and Friday in the two directions, and the Egyptian authorities alos allow aids into the strip, MENA reported.
On Saturday, the crossing was announced open for three days only, but President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi ordered Monday it open for a total of five days.
The Palestinian Interior Ministry announced it has a list of over 15,000 “humanitarian cases” registered to cross the border, which had been closed since May 27.
On May 27, the crossing was reopened for three days for Palestinians in one direction (Rafah to Gaza); around 1,440 crossed into to the Palestinian side over the three days, Youm7 reported.
Since October 2014 attacks on Egyptian military personnel in Arish of North Sinai, Egypt has launched a military campaign and closed the crossing to build a 1-kilometer buffer zone along the border to stop infiltration of “terrorists” through smuggling tunnels.
Further, Egypt’s relations with Hamas, which rules the Gaza strip, severely deteriorated after the 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.