Egypt sends medical aid to Gaza after Israeli strikes

Egypt has sent 65 tonnes of medical aid to neighbouring Gaza after a week of Israeli strikes left more than 200 Palestinians dead and hundreds more wounded, health officials said.

With hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed by patients, the critical surgical supplies include specialist burns treatment as well as "ventilators, oxygen tanks (and) syringes," Health Minister Hala Zayed said late Monday.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday ordered the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt - the enclave's only border point not controlled by Israel - to open to allow wounded Gazans to be treated in Egyptian hospitals and to deliver aid.

Sources at Rafah on Tuesday said that 26 trucks of food had been sent to Gaza, with 50 ambulances ready to transport the wounded.

Egypt said it would make in space in 11 hospitals with over 900 beds.

Wounded Gazans were taken across the Rafah border crossing into Egypt for treatment, as Cairo's foreign minister called for "concessions" to end the current conflict with Israel https://t.co/Cg0yJRFDaN

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) May 16, 2021

Read also: Egypt arrests doctor who volunteered to treat wounded Gazans amid crackdown on pro-Palestine activism

Israel launched its air campaign on the Gaza Strip on May 10 in response to rocket fire from the enclave's rulers, the Islamist group Hamas, which came following police violence against Palestinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Israeli air strikes have killed 213 Palestinians, including 61 children, and wounded more than 1,400 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The UN says nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced and 2,500 have lost their homes.

Strikes have knocked out the only Covid-19 testing laboratory in Gaza, the territory's health ministry has said.