On Monday, Turkey sent two cargo planes to Egypt carrying medical equipment and supplies for Gaza, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, adding two more aircraft would be sent with more supplies.
Earlier this month, Turkey sent three aircraft carrying aid for Gaza. On Sunday, it also sent a medical team and supplies to Egypt, saying Ankara was ready to treat wounded Palestinians in Turkey if needed and to set up a field hospital at Egypt’s El Arish Airport and Rafah border crossing.
On a social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Koca said the cargo planes carried medicine, generators, medical supplies, incubators for babies, phototherapy machinery, diapers, and baby food.
Among the medical supplies, he said, were emergency response equipment, operating tables, ventilators, ultrasound machines, and orthopedic supplies for those wounded in the fighting.
“The four planes of health support that are being planned for Gaza as aid will be sent from Egypt to Gaza via highways.”
Rafah is the major crossing in and out of Gaza that does not border Israel. Since Israel blockaded the enclave in retaliation for an invasion by the Palestinian militants Hamas on October 7, Rafah has become the focus of efforts to deliver aid.
Humanitarian aid deliveries through Rafah started on Saturday after wrangling over procedures for checking and inspecting the aid and after bombardments on the Gaza side of the border had left relief materials stranded in Egypt.
So far, three aid convoys have entered Gaza from Rafah, but carrying a bit of the amount U.N. officials say is required to meet the basic needs of Gaza, which is home to 2.3 million people.
