800 Palestinians to exit Gaza for Mecca

Some 800 Palestinians crossed yesterday from the Gaza Strip into Egypt on their initial stage of a pilgrimage to Mecca, the first time since 2014 Egyptian authorities have granted visas for such a trip. The pilgrims left at around dawn and were to be met by buses on the Egyptian side to bring them to Cairo’s airport, from where they would fly to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, said a Palestinian official at the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip.

Fifteen Gazans among the 800 were not authorised to cross, according to a Palestinian security official at Rafah, without providing the reasons. Security sources on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing confirmed it was the first such permission for the Muslim umrah pilgrimage since the start of Egyptian military operations in northern Sinai in 2014.