By: Gazette Staff CAIRO, May 18, 2018 - Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El Sisi on Friday ordered the Rafah Border Crossing with Gaza be open for a month, allowing Palestinians to cross during Ramadan. In a tweet, President Sisi said he was opening the Rafah crossing point for the entirety of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday, to "ease the burdens on the brothers in the Gaza Strip". President Sisi's order would result in the longest period during which the crossing has been open for years. The crossing provides Gaza residents with a vital link to the outside world. The border opening comes after Israeli forces killed more than 116 and wounded more than 1,000 Palestinians during a protest march on the Gaza-Israel border on Monday timed to coincide with the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who was in Turkey on Friday to attend a meeting of the Islamic Co-operation Council, called the incident "a major violation committed by the occupation forces against the unarmed Palestinian people." Speaking at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Egypt permanent delegate Ambassador Allaa Youssef strongly condemned the targeting of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces leaving dozens of Palestinians dead and more than 1,600 others wounded. Egypt reiterates its rejection to the use of force in facing peaceful marches that call for legitimate and just rights, Ambassador Youssef said. He also reiterated Egypt's full support to the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, including in the foremost the right to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital. In the meantime, the UN's senior human rights official has rebuked Israel, saying there was little evidence that that the country's armed forces had attempted to minimise casualties during protests by Palestinians earlier this week that saw dozens of protesters killed. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said that while Palestinians were killed and thousands injured in a single day of protests on Monday, "on the Israeli side, one soldier was reportedly wounded, slightly, by a stone". "The stark contrast in casualties on both sides is ... suggestive of a wholly disproportionate response," he told the council. Hussein told the meeting that many of the Palestinians injured and killed "were completely unarmed [and] were shot in the back, in the chest, in the head and limbs with live ammunition", saying there was "little evidence of any [Israeli] attempt to minimise casualties". He also said that Israel has systematically deprived Palestinians of their human rights, with 1.9 million in Gaza "caged in a toxic slum from birth to death". In Gaza, residents told Reuters that Israel deserved its international criticism. "Israel must be dismantled as a state and its leaders must stand international trial for their massacres against us since 1948," said Ibrahim Abu Galeb, 65, a refugee living in southern Gaza. "Israel occupied our land, displaced our people, killed our children's dreams to live safely and it is behind our sickness and poverty."
