Egypt Denies Israel’s Allegations of Preventing Aid from Entering Gaza

CAIRO, (Xinhua): Egypt denied on Friday the “allegations and lies” of the Israeli defense team before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Egypt is responsible for preventing the entry of humanitarian and relief aid into the Gaza Strip from the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

Israeli officials have confirmed dozens of times in public statements since the start of the aggression on Gaza that “they will not allow aid to enter the Gaza Strip, particularly fuel, because this is a part of the war that their state is waging against the Strip,” Chairman of Egypt’s State Information Service Diaa Rashwan, said in a statement.

The Egyptian official noted when Israel found itself before the International Court of Justice accused with documented evidence of its crimes of the prevention of aid entry and siege, “it resorted to throwing accusations against Egypt in an attempt to escape its likely condemnation by the court.”

Rashwan said it is clear that Egypt’s sovereignty extends only to the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, while the other side of it in Gaza is subject to the actual occupation authority.

“This was demonstrated in the mechanism for the entry of aid from the Egyptian side to the Karm Abu Salem crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip to Israeli territory, where it is inspected by the Israeli army, before allowing it to enter the territory of the Gaza Strip,” Rashwan added.

He affirmed that Egypt has reiterated in official statements that the Rafah crossing from the Egyptian side is open without interruption, calling on the Israeli side not to prevent the flow of humanitarian aid to the Strip and to stop deliberately obstructing or delaying the entry of aid under the pretext of inspecting it.

He also said that the negotiations that took place over the humanitarian truce in November last year, which lasted for a week in the Gaza Strip, witnessed extreme intransigence from the Israeli side in determining the amount of aid that the occupation forces would allow entering Gaza.

The ICJ concluded on Friday its two-day public hearings on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel and demand for the court’s urgent intervention to stop Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

On Thursday, during the hearing held at the Peace Palace, the seat of the ICJ in The Hague, the South African side accused Israel of the “deliberate” and “systemic” genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by citing reports and data from the United Nations and other international agencies, and representing video evidence. ■