Cairo - After six day of continuous Israeli air raids on the nearby Gaza Strip, the Egyptian border town of Rafah has become a ghost town as residents flee the city. Airstrikes in neighboring Gaza have shattered glass in the buildings of Rafah. Electricity had also been cut because of the raids.
Thus, Israeli raid are causing pain not just for Gazans, but also for Egyptians as well. The town of Rafah is split by the border, with half of it in Gaza. Many have family on the other side.
The town, which usually makes money by smuggling goods into Gaza, has now been transformed into a transit point for aid to the Gaza strip.
Most of the citizens deserted their homes and went to more secure cities like nearby al-Arish, 50 kilometres west of Rafah.
The raids have also caused some areas of the border fence to collapse along the Rafah border, allowing some 700 Gazans to sneak into Egypt. Local authorities arrested 200 of them.
Meanwhile, 15 injured Palestinians were taken to al-Arish hospital for treatment on Thursday.
Egypt has refused to open the border, but still allows aid trucks to pass through Egypt, hoping that aid convoys it sends will lessen criticism that it is not doing enough to help Palestinians.
"The Rafah border is always open for aid trucks to pass through," Abdel Fadil Shusha, the governor of North Sinai, told Deutsche Presse- Agentur, dpa.
Thousands of people across the Arab world have taken to the streets over the past week calling for the Egyptian president to open the Rafah borders permanently to stop the Gaza blockade.
Nine trucks filled with food and aid crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip on Thursday as more planes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria reached Rafah airport with aid.
