EU welcomes opening of Rafah border crossing and safe passage of EU citizens

The EU welcomes the evacuation of a number of EU citizens and other foreign nationals, as well as injured persons via the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on 1 November.

Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, said: "Since 7 October, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence unleashed by Hamas’ terrorist attack and Israel’s response. I welcome the opening for EU citizens to leave the Gaza Strip for safety. The EU stands ready to help repatriate European citizens, as well as to evacuate Palestinian patients through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. At the same time, I call on all involved to ensure safe and unrestricted humanitarian aid at scale needed for all civilians that continue to be trapped in the Gaza Strip."

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said: "I would like to warmly thank the Egyptian authorities for their admirable efforts to help foreign citizens, staff of international organisations and their families, including European citizens, to safely enter their country. It has been an important request we have made to our partners. We must keep working together to further intensify our efforts to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

High Representative/Vice-President, Josep Borrell, said: "Our thanks to Egypt for its humanitarian efforts to enable people, injured and others, to leave Gaza in an orderly fashion, and to the US and Qatar for having brokered this humanitarian agreement. On our side we are fully mobilised and we offer support to alleviate the suffering in Gaza. We call for humanitarian corridors and pauses to address the urgent needs. Protecting civilians and easing the increasingly dire situation is our priority."

Background

The EU has tripled its humanitarian assistance to Gaza to €78 million, aiming to enable our partners to continue their invaluable humanitarian work.

The European Council Conclusions, adopted on 26 October, called for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs.

The EU has launched a Humanitarian Air Bridge operation in aid to the people affected by the crisis, facilitating the delivery of humanitarian cargo supplied by partners.

Since 16 October, 6 flights carrying over 263 tonnes of aid reached Egypt. The operations aim to facilitate the prepositioning of aid in support of fast delivery of assistance to people in need in Gaza.

Furthermore, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated to offer support for repatriation flights from Israel.