By Anadolu staff
ISTANBUL (AA) - Egypt has decided to increase the number of truckloads of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing to 300 per day effective Sunday, said an official.
The move coincides with six months passing since Israel began its brutal war on the enclave, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.
Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egyptian Information Service, said in a statement that his country had decided to increase the number of humanitarian aid trucks carrying food, medical supplies and daily necessities in accordance with the directives of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Rashwan neither specified whether all of the aid is Egyptian or also comes from other countries and entities nor the number of trucks currently entering Gaza through Rafah.
He said the number of aid trucks that entered from the Egyptian side to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip alone since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on March 11 amounted to 322.
The number of trucks that have entered Gaza through Rafah since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023 has reached 19,354 carrying 19,952 tons of medical supplies, and 23,453 tons of food, according to Rashwan.
He added that the trucks also carried 10,435 tons of fuel, 26,692 tons of water and 44,103 tons of other relief materials along with 123 equipped ambulances.
Rashwan further said that 3,764 injured and sick people entered Egypt from the Gaza Strip for treatment along with 6,191 companions and 66,759 foreign and dual nationals as well as 6,330 Egyptians.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack early last October by the Palestinian group Hamas which killed around 1,200 people.
Nearly 33,200 Palestinians have since been killed and almost 75,900 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which recently asked it to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.
*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala