War in the Middle East
Embassy welcomes Germans who have left the country in Rafah
Palestinian ambulances at the border crossing in Rafah. photo
© Hatem Ali/AP/dpa
The Gaza war will last almost four weeks. Now the first people from the Gaza Strip were able to leave for Egypt. There are also Germans among them.
Among the foreigners coming from the Those who were able to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt are also German citizens.
As the Foreign Office announced on the X platform, formerly Twitter, these were employees of international aid organizations. They were met at the Rafah border crossing by a team from the Cairo Embassy. The Foreign Office said it was a low single-digit number of Germans.
“At the same time, we are continuing to work hard on the departure of the remaining Germans in Gaza,” the ministry wrote in another X-Post. Efforts to rescue the German hostages also continued intensively. Work is also underway to increase urgently needed aid deliveries for the people in the Gaza Strip.
Rafah is the only crossing in the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel. Today, for the first time since the start of the Gaza war on October 7th, hundreds of foreigners and Palestinians were able to leave the coastal strip that was otherwise sealed off by Israel towards Egypt with a second passport. According to eyewitnesses and the Red Crescent, these included citizens of the USA, Canada, Austria, Finland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria as well as Japan, Australia and Indonesia.
Injured people were also allowed to leave
Injured people from the Gaza Strip were also transported to the Egyptian town of Al-Arish and other places near the border for treatment. So far, only aid supplies for the civilian population in need have passed through the crossing.
According to the Israeli army, at least 240 hostages were kidnapped into the Gaza Strip during the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th. More than 1,400 people died during and in the following days. In response, Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip and began massive air and ground strikes.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip rose to 8,796, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. Among the dead were 3,648 children and young people under the age of 18, the authority reported. The numbers cannot currently be independently verified.