Paweł Jabłoński made the statement in a radio interview, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The deputy foreign minister told private broadcaster Radio Zet that the Rafah border crossing between Israel’s Hamas-controlled territory of Gaza and Egypt had been reopened.
Jabłoński said: “There are no obstacles to allowing our citizens to leave the Gaza Strip. We are awaiting a formal decision by the Israeli side.”
On Monday, Poland’s foreign ministry summoned the Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian ambassadors to ensure the evacuation of Polish citizens from the Gaza Strip.
Jabłoński told Radio Zet on Tuesday that the envoys confirmed that the Rafah border was being reopened.
He added: “Today evacuation is set to resume at a pace that will allow the evacuation of large groups of people. Hopefully they will also include Poles.”
Hamas reopened the Rafah border after Israel had agreed to allow 30 injured Palestinians to be transferred to Egypt, the AFP news agency reported.
The militant group had closed the crossing on November 4, after Israel initially refused to allow injured Palestinians to travel to hospitals in Egypt, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
On Monday, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Yacov Livne, said his country would “do everything in its power” to help with the evacuation of Poles from Gaza, according to IAR.
After the meeting at the Polish foreign ministry, the Israeli envoy said the issue was “in the hands of the Hamas terrorist organisation,” which he said was “using the civilian population in Gaza as human shields.”
Meanwhile, the Palestinian ambassador to Poland, Mahmoud Khalifa, said on Monday that his country was “doing all we can” to help evacuate Poles from the Gaza Strip, the IAR news agency reported.
He added that “above all, there needs to be pressure on the Israeli army, on the Israeli authorities, to stop this war.”
Poland’s foreign ministry said this week that 29 Polish citizens, and two more people who are family members, were staying in the Gaza Strip and that Polish officials were “in constant contact” with them, the PAP news agency reported.
Israel-Hamas war
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7 when the Palestinian militant group launched an attack from Gaza that killed over 1,400 people, British broadcaster BBC has reported.
Some 240 Israelis were kidnapped as hostages, according to news outlets.
Israel has since been bombing Gaza, killing 10,022 people, including 4,104 children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, BBC
