Israel-Egypt Rafah spat puts Biden in a bind

The deepening spat between Egypt and Israel over Rafah’s shuttered border crossing is putting the Biden administration in a bind, as the minor progress it made increasing humanitarian aid into Gaza slows to a snail's pace.

For months, the Biden administration has said it is prioritising surging more humanitarian aid into Gaza. While the amount of aid reaching Gaza had been minimal compared to before Israel’s invasion of the besieged enclave, US officials and aid workers had noted some small gains in deliveries.

The number of aid trucks entering Gaza had nearly doubled from 2,545 in the month of November to 5,671 in April, according to the UN. That amount was just 37 percent of the number of trucks entering Gaza before the war broke out on 7 October, when 80 percent of Gaza’s population relied on aid. But with the closing of Rafah’s border crossing, the situation has deteriorated further.

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