CAIRO, February 12. /TASS/. Egypt has delivered at least 100,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah checkpoint since October last year, the country's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said during a meeting in Dubai with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

"Egypt continues its efforts to provide our Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip with the humanitarian assistance they need: to date, 130 000 tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered there, and Cairo alone provided 100, 000 tons," the press service of the Egyptian Cabinet of Ministers quotes Madbouly as saying on its Facebook page (prohibited in Russia; owned by Meta Corporation, which has been designated as extremist in Russia). He also noted that Egypt "continues to make efforts to achieve a truce and find a final solution to the Palestinian crisis through serious negotiations between the parties," and stressed that his country considers the implementation of the two-State principle to be the only possible way to reduce escalation in the region.

On February 9, the official representative of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Ahmed Fahmy, said that the Egyptian authorities had kept the Rafah checkpoint on the border with the enclave open from the very beginning of the escalation of tensions in the Gaza Strip and only the bombing of Israeli forces had caused a forced and temporary halt in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of the sector through the land crossing on the Egyptian border. A representative of the Egyptian leader confirmed that 80% of the support delivered to Gaza is provided directly by the Egyptian government, humanitarian and public organizations of the country.

Tensions flared up in the Middle East after the infiltration of Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, accompanied by the killing of residents of border settlements and hostage-taking. In response Israel declared a total blockade of Gaza and began to conduct strikes on the sector as well as certain areas of Lebanon and Syria, and then launched a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank of the Jordan River.