Explainer-Why Gaza's Rafah border crossing matters, and why Egypt is keeping it shut

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SaltWire's Atlantic regional weather forecast for October 17, 2023] | SaltWire - The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is the sole route for aid to enter Gaza directly from outside Israel and the only exit that does not lead to Israeli territory.

Foreign passport holders are expected to be allowed out under any deal to reopen the crossing, and have therefore headed in recent days to the vicinity, seeking to exit. In 2008, tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed into Sinai after Hamas blasted holes in border fortifications, prompting Egypt to build a stone and cement wall.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday the United States and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza without benefiting Hamas.Arab countries have deep-rooted fears that Israel's latest war with Hamas in Gaza could spark a new wave of permanent displacement from land where Palestinians want to build a state.

For Arabs and Palestinians, the idea of leaving or being driven out of territory where they want to forge a state carries echoes of the"Nakba", or"catastrophe", when many Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation.

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