Against the background of the decision of the Egyptian authorities to allow the departure of foreigners from the Gaza Strip through the "Rafah" checkpoint, Ukrainian embassies began preparations for the evacuation of their citizens, said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleh Nikolenko.
According to him, 358 people are waiting for departure — they are mostly women and children. Permission to export them to Egypt is awaited.
As the Egyptian side reported, the departure of foreigners from the Gaza Strip will take place in alphabetical order, according to the name of the country of which they have citizenship.
Currently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already updated the list of those willing to leave and officially sent a request to the parties involved in order to issue permits to leave the Palestinian exclave and transit through Egyptian territory. The necessary transport was also booked.
- On October 14, Ukraine began evacuating its citizens who are in Israel. Then 207 citizens of Ukraine, including 63 children, flew from Tel Aviv to Bucharest. The second evacuation plane with 155 citizens of Ukraine left Israel on October 16. On the same day, a third evacuation flight took place with 74 Ukrainians on board. For the fourth time, 79 citizens of Ukraine flew from Israel to Romania on a charter flight.
- On October 24, Ukraineʼs ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk called the situation in the Gaza Strip "absolutely uncontrollable." According to him, the embassy receives information about the state of affairs in the enclave, in particular about dead and wounded Ukrainians, only through a few activists of the Ukrainian community. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of October 31, four Ukrainians are known to have died in the Gaza Strip. Three of them are children. It is also known about six wounded Ukrainians in the enclave.