Egypt hosted a meeting in Cairo on Sunday with Israeli and US officials, which focused on opening the Rafah border crossing, which is crucial for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, Egyptian media reported, without specifying whether an agreement had been reached. .

On the occasion of this meeting, Cairo reiterated its denial that the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing is controlled by Israel, according to a “high-ranking official” quoted by Al-Qahera News, a television network close to the Egyptian intelligence services.

When the Israeli army began its ground operations on May 7 in Rafah, a town in the southern Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, it took control of the crossing point of the same name on the Palestinian side. The crossing is a key entry point for humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged Palestinian territory between Israel and Palestinian Hamas.

Since then, the governments of Egypt and Israel have blamed each other for blocking aid, with Egyptian authorities refusing to manage the crossing in coordination with the Israeli side, preferring to work with international and Palestinian agencies.

The “high-ranking official” cited by Al-Qahera News said on Sunday afternoon that the tripartite meeting in Cairo, attended by the Egyptian security delegation and the delegations of the United States and Israel, had ended.

According to the same source, Egypt reiterated “the need for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in order to resume its activities.”

Also, the Egyptian delegation attributed “full responsibility” to Israel for blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

The delegation reiterated the need to “work immediately to have at least 350 trucks of aid, whether food, medical or fuel, enter the (Gaza) Strip daily. Gaza should receive at least 500 trucks of humanitarian aid daily, according to UN to meet the enclave’s needs, as the wide-scale Israeli assault on Gaza has caused a major humanitarian disaster, with residents at risk of starvation.

Talks in May between US President Joe Biden and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi resulted in a temporary agreement on the passage of UN aid through Israel’s Kerem Shalom border crossing. Since then, deliveries have been made intermittently in recent weeks, but they are far short of what is needed to cover needs.