Israel Controls Main Border Crossing with Egypt, Palestinian Authority: Death Sentence to Gaza Residents

The Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - The control of the main border crossing with Egypt, which has resulted in the closure of an important aid route, is said by the Palestinian Authority to be a death sentence against the residents of the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that it had taken over operational control of the Rafah Crossing in the southern part of Gaza, which borders Egypt and plays an important role in the delivery of aid and the exit of people injured in the Gaza war.

The Israeli military continued, its troops scanned the area in the morning after launching ground and air operations in the eastern part of Rafah on Monday evening.

"The Israeli occupation has sentenced the residents of the Gaza Strip to death," said Hisham Edwan, spokesman for the Gaza Border Crossing Authority, as reported by Reuters, May 8.

The seizure of the Rafah border crossing came despite weeks of calls from the United States, other governments and international bodies for Israel to postpone a major offensive in the Rafah area, which Israel says is the last stronghold of Hamas fighters but also a place of refuge. more than one million displaced Palestinian civilians.

Israeli army footage showed tanks moving past the Rafah crossing complex and Israeli flags raised on the Gaza side.

Meanwhile, the militant group Hamas accused Israel of trying to undermine efforts to reach a ceasefire in the seven-month war that has devastated Gaza and left hundreds of thousands of its residents homeless and starving.

Separately, the UN and other international aid agencies say the closure of two crossings into southern Gaza, the Israeli-controlled Rafah and Kerem Shalom, has actually cut off the enclave from outside aid and has very few shops within it.

Meanwhile, a Red Crescent source in Egypt said aid deliveries had stopped completely.