(01-12) 18:35 PST Rafah, Egypt -- After waiting for 11 days at Egypt's border terminal here, several foreign volunteer physicians were finally granted permission today by Egyptian authorities to board a bus headed for Gaza.
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"I'm not a hero. I'm not a rebel. I'm a doctor and a human," said Dr. Nikolas Dousis-Rassias.
Dousis-Rassias and colleague, Dr. Dmitrios Mogni - volunteer physicians with Athens-based Doctors of Peace - crossed into Gaza with a group of nine foreign doctors, including six from France and one from Ireland.
The foreign doctors will assist Gazan physicians at Nasr Hospital in the town of Khan Yunis, according to Dr. Ahmed El-Wahab, an official from Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population.
Despite the long wait, the Greek physicians were eager to put their skills to work relieving weary Gazan physicians.
"I feel good that we're going in now," Mogni said. "They did everything to keep us out."
The foreign doctors were required to sign statements releasing Egypt from all liability, Dousis-Rassias said. A representative of Egyptian border director Badawie Abd El-Aziz said he expects more foreign doctors to cross in coming days, but he would not comment on why the foreign volunteers were barred access to Gaza until today.
Dousis-Rassias suspects that Israel is behind Egypt's lackluster efforts to get aid shipments, foreign volunteers and journalists through the Rafah gate.
"Israel knows that non-Arabs and non-Muslims will report things objectively, and they don't want Western blood on their hands," he said. "Unfortunately, human life has a passport."
Egypt has stepped up its aid to beleaguered Gazan hospitals since Friday, when groups of Arab doctors began entering Gaza through the Rafah terminal. Sixty-one Arab doctors have crossed into Gaza since Friday, according to Dr. Mahmoud Shaheen, general director of Al-Arish Hospital. Al-Arish Hospital is one of two Egyptian triage sites near the Gaza border.
At 5:30 p.m., a convoy of 25 ambulances from the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population left the Rafah gate for hospitals in Khan Yunis - 12 miles from Egyptian Rafah - with 50 EMTs and five trauma physicians. The ambulances returned safely to Egyptian territory just before 11 p.m., according to Shaheen, carrying 42 Gazan patients. The round-trip voyage took five hours.
"This is so nice," Shaheen said, "because we have been waiting so many days with so few cases."
Al-Arish Hospital and Mubarak Army Hospital - both in Al-Arish, Egypt - have a combined capacity of 500 beds, according to Dr. Tarek El-Mahdawy, secretary of health affairs in North Sinai. Hospitals across Egypt have been specially equipped to handle 3,000 Gazan patients, El-Mahdawy added.
Dr. Shaheen hopes Egyptian ambulances will retrieve patients from Gaza as frequently as possible "now that we have found safe passage." Today's convoy brings the total number of Gazan patients in Egypt to almost 300, Shaheen said.
The deployment of Egyptian ambulances and personnel deep into Gaza marks a departure from Egypt's cautious efforts on behalf of Gazans since Israel began its offensive on Dec. 27. Until today, Egyptian ambulances had remained on the Egyptian side of the Rafah terminal, waiting for Palestinian ambulances to bring trauma cases to the border.
An Egyptian Ministry of Interior official, who refused to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said 16 trucks loaded with 47 tons of medical aid from Turkey and Kuwait passed into Gaza through the Rafah gate on today.
Journalists are still officially barred from entering Gaza at the Rafah border crossing. Djehan Abou Daya, who holds a French passport and was able to escape Gaza on Monday with the aid of the French consulates in Egypt and Jerusalem, pleaded with reporters at the Rafah gate to do everything in their power to enter Gaza.
"You must go and show the world what is happening to us, especially the children," she said.
Children make up approximately 56 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents, according to the World Health Organization.
Abou Daya fled her home in Nosarat - on the Mediterranean Sea - with her son and three daughters after Israeli shells landed in her garden.
"The roads are totally cut," Abou Daya said. "There is no safe place, not even during the cease-fire."
Hamas and Israel agreed to a daily cease-fire between the hours of 1 and 4 p.m last Wednesday to facilitate safe transportation of aid and to allow Gazans to search for food.
E-mail Elliott Woods at foreign@sfchronicle.com.
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