KUWAIT CITY, Oct 19: Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, Ahmed Abdel Hadi, revealed that the movement was actively coordinating with Iran, he said in response to a question from Newsweek magazine yesterday: “We coordinated with Hezbollah and with Iran before, during, and after this battle at the highest levels; but it seems that we have been exposed to clear betrayal and false promises from Iran. Yes, clear betrayal and false promises.” The Iranian mission to the United Nations denied that Tehran participated in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation launched by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades against the Israeli occupation last Saturday. Amid expectations that the Hamas leader's statement would provoke mixed reactions, Palestinian television confirmed yesterday that a large number of children were martyred and injured in a "new massacre" after the bombing of a school for displaced people in Khan Yunis.

Meanwhile, a senior Egyptian official source announced last night that the Rafah land crossing was opened today, Friday, to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will arrive at the crossing in the morning to supervise the entry of 20 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip.

US President Joe Biden confirmed that his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, had agreed to open the Rafah crossing to allow the entry of a first batch of humanitarian aid trucks, saying to reporters after a phone call with his Egyptian counterpart from aboard the presidential plane during his return from Israel the day before yesterday: “Sisi agreed.” To allow about 20 trucks to pass initially.”

Meanwhile, social networking sites in Egypt witnessed great anger yesterday, after activists discovered that the search engine “Google” had deleted the name of Sinai from its maps, as a large number of users discovered during searches on “Google” that the name for Sinai had already been deleted. Google left a large space empty without putting the name Sinai on it.

On a related level, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah II yesterday renewed the unified position of Egypt and Jordan rejecting any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians to Jordan or Egypt, and stressed, in a joint summit in Cairo, their rejection of the policy of collective punishment, such as siege, starvation, or displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and warned that failure to stop the war and its expansion and spread of its effects will move the region to a dangerous slide that threatens to cause the region to enter a catastrophe whose consequences are feared.

For his part, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and Minister of Defense and Military Production, Lieutenant General Mohamed Zaki, stressed the importance of stopping the military escalation in the Gaza Strip “to avoid the involvement of other parties” in the conflict that undermines the foundations of peace and stability in the region.

During his meeting with the Commander of the US Central Command, Lieutenant General Michael Corella, Zaki called for strengthening efforts to bring humanitarian aid and urgent relief materials into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah land crossing.

For his part, the Commander of the US Central Command praised, according to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Defense, “the pivotal role played by Egypt.”

While Egyptian squares are preparing to receive millions in massive demonstrations under the title “Friday of Anger” to reject the displacement of Palestinians to Sinai, in support of Sisi’s threat to bring millions of Egyptians out to the streets, the Egyptian Parliament, in an emergency session, authorized Sisi to take what is necessary to deal with the repercussions of the situation in Palestine.

In turn, the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, warned yesterday of what he described as a “malicious idea” of transferring numbers of Gazans to Iraq, specifically to the Anbar Governorate bordering Jordan, saying, “Shame on everyone who said or acknowledged the displacement of the Palestinian people to Sinai, Anbar, or The Negev or anything else at all, and everyone who aligns with the malicious, terrorist idea supports, whether he knows or does not know, the expansion of the brutal terrorist Zionist entity.”

He considered that “the issuance of the idea by the stinking Benjamin or by the senile old man, or by their henchmen in the Middle East, means the expansion and internationalization of the war,” stressing that “neither the abnormal America, nor the cranky Zionist entity, are guardians of Sinai, Anbar, or the Negev.”