Egypt on Saturday said it has an unbiased position towards all political factions in Gaza and it vowed to provide the strip with its basic needs irrespective of Palestinian political disagreements.
“Egypt provides Gaza with its basic needs regardless of Palestinian political disagreements,” said Egyptian Ambassador to the Palestinian Authority Yasser Othman.
The former regime of regime of President Hosni Mubarak was regarded as hostile to the Islamic Hamas movement, while favoring the secular Fatah movement.
Since Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007, Mubarak helped tighten the blockade against it, keeping the Rafah border crossing closed most of the time. Gaza’s 1.5 million people had to rely on a web of tunnels beneath the Rafah border for most of their needs.
But after the ouster of Mubarak, Egypt said in April last year that it would permanently open the border crossing to ease the blockade on Gaza.
Othman added that Egypt’s gas supply to Gaza is intended to ease the blockade imposed on it by Israel more than five years ago.
Othman told state news agency MENA that Egypt will begin supplying Gaza with gas over the next two days to solve the electricity crisis there.
On Saturday, a Gazan official said the Palestinian Authority is awaiting the implementation of the agreement to supply Gaza with gas, calling on the Egyptian government to fulfill its pledges to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
