Egypt opens Rafah crossing with Gaza for 48 hours

Egypt reopened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza for two days from Tuesday, Palestinian border officials said, for the first time since March.

Maher Abu Sabha, director of border crossings in the Gaza Strip, said traffic was permitted into Gaza only, to allow the return of Palestinians stranded in Egypt.

"I travelled on March 10 for eye treatment for my son, but we got stuck," Ahmed Al-Hato told AFP.

"I just needed seven days, but they closed the crossing," he said.

Egypt closed the crossing, the only access point to the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel, after a bombing in the Sinai Peninsula in October killed 30 of its soldiers.

It has since temporarily reopened the crossing several times.

October's attack also led to a state of emergency and curfew being imposed in some parts of North Sinai, where security forces are battling an Islamist insurgency.

The Egyptian army has also created a wide buffer zone along the border with Gaza aimed at preventing infiltration by militants.

Despite these measures, on January 29 another 30 people were killed when rockets and a car bomb targeted a military base and other security posts in North Sinai.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadist movement affiliated to the Islamic State group, has claimed most of the attacks in North Sinai, including those in October and January.
Source: AFP