In a press release published on Saturday, Iyad al-Bozum, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, said approximately 20,000 people with “humanitarian cases” in Gaza are waiting for the reopening of Rafah.

Bozum further warned that the closure of the border crossing by Egyptian authorities threatens the lives of those in need of urgent surgeries or suffering heart complications or cancer.

“We call on the Egyptian authorities to assess the difficult humanitarian conditions in Gaza and open the Rafah crossing urgently to save what can be saved,” he said.

Since 2007, the Tel Aviv regime maintains its land, air and sea blockade on more than 1.8 million people living in Gaza, denying them the most basic items like food, medicine and fuel.

The Rafah border crossing has largely been shut since Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in July 2013 in a military coup led by Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the then army commander and the country’s current president.

Cairo cites security concerns for Rafah’s closure. The crossing is the only passage for Palestinians to move in and out of the besieged Palestinian enclave free from Israeli control. Back in June, Egypt opened the crossing only for four days.

The military-back Egyptian administration has accused Hamas of helping militants operating in the North African country’s restive Sinai Peninsula.

Hamas, however, has strongly dismissed Egypt’s accusations against it concerning the militancy in Sinai. Bozum emphasized last October that “Gaza has nothing to do with what is happening inside Egypt.”