Jamil Sawalmeh, Country Director for ActionAid Palestine, said:
“The Rafah crossing is a critical lifeline for Palestinians, and its reopening must guarantee safe movement in both directions, facilitate medical evacuations at scale, allow for the unhindered entry of aid and commercial goods, and fully enable the right of Palestinians to return to their land. Without these conditions, it risks becoming another tool of ethnic cleansing.
We still lack clarity on how many medical evacuations will be enabled each day, and what we have seen over the past months, and even today, is a drop in the ocean of vital care needed. Israeli forces have destroyed nearly all chances to get critical care inside Gaza, and these continued obstructions are yet another way to kill people.
There are also grave concerns about how people wanting to return will be processed at the crossing. Recent reporting has raised alarms about the ongoing construction of militarized sites near Rafah, which could involve biometric surveillance and restricting movement further into the other parts of Gaza. These sites risk trapping Palestinians in holding facilities, where they would be controlled, surveilled, and prevented from moving freely in their own land.
Those funding and overseeing this process must ensure the Rafah crossing is used to protect Palestinian life, dignity, and rights, not deepen forced displacement and suffering.”
ActionAid is calling on the European Union and Egyptian authorities to use their physical presence at the Rafah crossing as leverage to ensure Israeli authorities comply with their obligations under international law, including the protection of civilians, freedom of movement, medical evacuations at scale, and the right of Palestinians to return.
ENDS
Jamil Sawalmeh, Country Director of ActionAid Palestine, and Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, are available for interview.
For media requests, please email christal.james@actionaid.org or call 7046659743.
Notes to editors
- There is currently no clear or transparent framework for how many medical evacuations will be permitted through the Rafah crossing each day.
- In recent months, only a few dozen patients have been able to leave for urgent medical treatment outside Gaza each month.
- Close to 20,000 people are estimated to require medical care outside Gaza due to the near-total destruction of the health system.
- As of mid-December, close to 1,200 people have died while waiting for medical evacuation.
About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty. n which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.