The UN informed Palestinian officials that it will stop receiving Palestinians returning from Egypt and coordinating their entry into Gaza starting in mid-November, citing the dangers facing returnees and repeated Israeli arrests, a senior Palestinian source involved in negotiations told Drop Site News.
- The decision follows Israel’s arrest of a Palestinian cancer patient and her daughter on Tuesday, the same day Rafah reopened after a roughly 10-day suspension triggered by the detention of another returnee.
- “The United Nations will ask the parties concerned to provide an alternative entity to assume this responsibility; however, its withdrawal will proceed regardless of whether an alternative is secured,” the source told Drop Site.
- Finding a replacement will be difficult, the source said, as transporting returnees requires coordination with Israel and passage through dangerous areas within the Yellow and Red Line zones. The Red Cross may be the only alternative, but its Gaza office previously declined, the source said, saying the task fell outside its mandate.
- Nearly all Palestinians who leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing are medical evacuees and their companions through a process that is facilitated by the UN. While the UN will continue to facilitate medical evacuations, its decision to stop receiving Palestinians entering Gaza could affect the entire operation of the crossing, the source said, as Egypt might not agree to accept medical evacuees leaving Gaza unless they are allowed to return. Under a negotiated agreement, the number of Palestinians allowed to return into Gaza must equal the number allowed to leave.
- “Maybe the Egyptians will say if no one is allowed to return, we will also not be part of, of receiving one from Gaza, which means at the end that the whole process is blocked,” the source said.
- Drop Site is reaching out to the UN and will update this story when we receive a response.
In other Palestine News, Gaza faces critical flour shortage as remaining bakeries risk closure within 48 hours. Israeli settlers and soldiers continue attacks on olive harvesters across the occupied West Bank. 409 Israeli attacks on Palestinian olive harvest in the occupied West Bank in three weeks.