Gaza City: Egypt began allowing hundreds of Palestinians to cross from the besieged Gaza Strip today for advanced medical treatment, a senior Palestinian medical official said.

"We began to transport patients requiring treatment abroad into Egypt via the Rafah crossing after our Egyptian brothers opened the crossing," said the director of Gaza emergency services, Dr Muawiya Hassanein.

"We will transport 550 patients in 40 Palestinian ambulances and five trucks. All of them have official medical referrals from the health ministry," he added.

The patients include 200 people wounded in Israeli military operations and 70 children under the age of 16, he said.

A senior Hamas official confirmed that the crossing would be open for three days to allow the sick to enter for treatment and those trapped on one side or the other to cross back to their place of residence.

"The Rafah crossing will be open for three days beginning on Saturday for emergency cases, in the context of easing the suffering of our people and based on coordination between Hamas and Egypt," Ismail Radwan said.

"We hope this will be the fist step towards permanently opening the crossing and breaking the siege," he said.

Since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in Gaza nearly 11 months ago, taking over the entire government including the health ministry, Israel has sealed Gaza to all but very limited humanitarian assistance.

For months Hamas has been calling on Egypt to open the Rafah border crossing -- the only gateway to Gaza not under Israeli control -- but it has only done so on a few occasions since last summer.
Source : PTI