Gaza City: Some 800 Palestinians crossed Sunda from the Gaza Strip into Egypt on their initial stage of a pilgrimage to Mecca, the first time since 2014 Egyptian authorities have granted visas for such a trip. The pilgrims left at around dawn and were to be met by buses on the Egyptian side to bring them to Cairo’s airport, from where they would fly to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, said a Palestinian official at the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip.
Fifteen Gazans among the 800 were not authorised to cross, according to a Palestinian security official at Rafah, without providing the reasons.
Security sources on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing confirmed it was the first such permission for the umrah pilgrimage since the start of Egyptian military operations in northern Sinai in 2014.
Around 2,500 pilgrims are authorised annually to leave Gaza via Egypt for the haj. Since the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Egypt has faced an insurgency in North Sinai. Last year, Egypt’s military launched a major offensive against the Sinai fighters, though Cairo has for years considered the entire area a security priority. Gaza, run by Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade for more than a decade. Gaza fighters and Israel have fought three wars since 2008. — AFP
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