France evacuates 100 nationals from Gaza via Rafah crossing

More than 100 French nationals and their dependents have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, the foreign ministry in Paris said Tuesday.

“Two groups of French nationals, officials and rights holders were able to leave” on Monday and Tuesday from Gaza and are now “in safety in Egypt,” the ministry said in a statement.

The departures “bring the number of exits organised by France to more than 100 people,” it added.

Hundreds of foreign passport holders were waiting at the Rafah crossing Tuesday for evacuation into Egypt, an AFP journalist saw.

People were allowed to leave between Wednesday and Friday last week, including dozens of wounded Palestinians as well as foreign nationals.

Departures resumed on Monday after Rafah was closed over the weekend.

“In the coming days, we will continue our efforts so that all our countrymen, our officials and their families who want to leave Gaza are able to do so,” the French foreign ministry said.

Paris also thanked “Egyptian authorities for all of their help” in the evacuations, promising to “increase humanitarian aid sent to the population of Gaza”.

Gaza has been under Israeli bombardment since Hamas carried out an attack of unprecedented scale on October 7, killing 1,400 mostly civilian Israelis, according to official tolls.

The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza says 10,000 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in the month since then in the Palestinian enclave.