CAIRO: Egypt called for the creation of humanitarian corridors in Gaza to allow food and medicine to be brought into the Israeli-battered Palestinian enclave, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit sent letters to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the foreign ministers of the Security Council s five permanent members asking them to consider the proposal, a statement said.
The Egyptian proposal is aimed at avoiding as much as possible the horrors of military operations, the statement said.
Egypt shares the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the only one to bypass Israel, which has been opened only sporadically since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power there in June 2007.
After the start of Israeli operations in Gaza, Egypt opened the crossing to medicine and food and took in more than 100 wounded Palestinians.
Egypt, one of two Arab countries along with Jordan that has a peace treaty with the Jewish state, has accused the UN Security Council of failing to quickly resolve the crisis.
Israel says its offensive may take days, and has denied there is a humanitarian crisis in the foreign-aid dependent coastal strip, which is home to about 1.5 million people. -AFP
