Aid convoy allowed in Gaza via Rafah terminal

Egyptian authorities allowed Sunday an Arab aid convoy into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing. Hamas deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad told reporters that the convoy helps alleviate the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007. The 26th Miles of Smiles aid campaign includes 12 cars carrying medicine and 21 activists from Algeria, Jordan, Libya and Arab nationals living in the United Kingdom. For his part, head of the campaign Issam Youssif said in a press conference after crossing into Gaza that the campaign is meant to show solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza. "Gaza is not alone, this is our message," Youssif said. Egyptian authorities have partly reopened the Rafah crossing on Sunday for Palestinian pilgrims and those who had been stranded in Egypt. Hamas government in Gaza has recently complained of an acute reduction in the aid campaigns bound for Gaza due to the repeated Egyptian closures of the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only door to the outside world. Relations between Hamas and the new military-backed government of Egypt worsened to unprecedented levels after the ouster of Islamist Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi last July. Since toppling Morsi, the new army-backed Egyptian government partly reopens the Rafah crossing on humanitarian basis, allowing the entry for only patients, students in foreign countries and holders of foreign visas and passports.