A ceasefire agreed by the US, Egypt and Israel would be announced in the southern Gaza Strip from 06:00 GMT. Two Egyptian security sources said on Monday that the Rafah border crossing would be reopened.
Sources say the ceasefire will last within hours, but there is no exact information on the duration yet. The countries also agreed to open the Rafah crossing by 14:00 GMT on Monday as an initial one-day opening. Rafah, a border crossing between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is the only crossing into the territory not controlled by Israel.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egyptian non-governmental organisations wait for permission to make the hours-long journey to Rafah in the Sinai town of Al-Arish on Monday morning, as images published by Reuters show.
Al-Arish is hosting aid provided by several countries and organisations, awaiting an agreement on the delivery of aid and the evacuation of foreign nationals from Gaza, which US Secretary of State Blinken said was reached after a visit to Cairo. The US embassy in Israel and the Israeli military have not yet commented on the situation.
The head of the Hamas government’s media office, Salama Marouf, said that they had not received any confirmation from the Egyptian side about intentions to open the crossing.
Since the war, there had been efforts to reopen Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza to let foreigners leave. The opening would also enable humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. On October 7, Israel had declared a war after Hamas attacked Israel on a major Jewish holiday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed to retaliate against Hamas.
