{"id":51332,"date":"2024-05-15T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/15\/gaza-aid-gains-may-be-lost-as-fighting-rages-in-rafah-the-u-s-secretary-of-state-says\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:08:08","slug":"gaza-aid-gains-may-be-lost-as-fighting-rages-in-rafah-the-u-s-secretary-of-state-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/15\/gaza-aid-gains-may-be-lost-as-fighting-rages-in-rafah-the-u-s-secretary-of-state-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza aid gains may be lost as fighting rages in Rafah, the U.S. secretary of state says."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/15\/multimedia\/15mideast-crisis-rafah-crossing-ghck\/15mideast-crisis-rafah-crossing-ghck-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Gaza aid gains may be lost as fighting rages in Rafah, the U.S. secretary of state says.\" title=\"Gaza aid gains may be lost as fighting rages in Rafah, the U.S. secretary of state says.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sameh Shoukry, Egypt\u2019s foreign minister, quickly pushed back, saying that the crossing was still closed because of Israel\u2019s control over it, and because its military operations were putting truck drivers and aid workers in danger. In a statement from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Shoukry rejected what he described as \u201cthe policy of twisting facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli officials rarely make public criticisms of Egypt, with which Israel maintains a decades-old peace treaty and sensitive security cooperation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Defying international pressure, Israel launched a limited invasion of Rafah on May 6, taking over areas in the east. Even if trucks were allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing, it was not clear if they could safely navigate through eastern Rafah, where Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas militants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israel recently opened two new routes for aid trucks to enter northern Gaza directly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re also seeing real progress in the north, where more is coming through,\u201d Mr. Blinken said. \u201cBut what we don\u2019t want to see is a situation where we basically reverse what\u2019s happened in recent months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Rafah crossing is not the only choke point for aid. Since the Israeli incursion into Rafah, only a small number of trucks have made it through Kerem Shalom, a nearby crossing between Israel and Gaza. Palestinians workers evacuated the crossing before the arrival of Israeli forces, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian side of the crossing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israel has asked the Palestinian Authority to send its employees to help run the crossing, but not in their official capacity, said two Palestinian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss messages exchanged between Israeli and Palestinian authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The authority\u2019s leadership swiftly rejected the proposal, said the officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mahmoud al-Habbash, a religious affairs advise to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the authority, said that Israel needed to withdraw from the crossing before Palestinian Authority employees would take responsibility for operating it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHow can we work with Israeli tanks there?\u201d he asked in an interview. \u201cIn terms of principle, that\u2019s unacceptable, not to mention the fact that would be dangerous for Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership, Mr. al-Habbash said, would also need to be reassured that the return of the authority to the Rafah crossing was part of a broader effort to reintegrate the governing body back into Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe don\u2019t reject steps being taken one after another, but it must be known that the Rafah crossing is part of Gaza, and a solution for the Rafah crossing is part of the solution for Gaza, and the solution for Gaza is part of the solution for all parts of the Palestinian state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In public statements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has all but ruled out the authority returning to Gaza, a prospect supported by the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Aaron Boxerman<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/15\/world\/middleeast\/rafah-border-crossing-gaza.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sameh Shoukry, Egypt\u2019s foreign minister, quickly pushed back, saying that the crossing was still closed because of Israel\u2019s control over it, and because its military operations were putting truck drivers and aid workers in danger. In a statement from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Shoukry rejected what he described as \u201cthe policy of twisting facts.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/15\/multimedia\/15mideast-crisis-rafah-crossing-ghck\/15mideast-crisis-rafah-crossing-ghck-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,75,5484,43,3131,4761,17966,34,2480,221],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51334,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51332\/revisions\/51334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}