Poland is waiting for permission from Israel to evacuate nearly 30 Polish citizens from the Gaza Strip as the Rafah land crossing has been reopened, a deputy Polish foreign minister has said.

The Poles became trapped in Gaza when Israel launched a massive air and land assault on the Palestinian territory following the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7.

“We’ve been working on it since October 9; that’s when we presented the list of our citizens to be evacuated,” Paweł Jablonski, a deputy head of the Polish foreign ministry, told private broadcaster Radio Zet on Tuesday.

“We’re waiting for it to be formally approved currently by the Israeli side.”

On Monday, negotiations were held in the Polish Foreign Ministry between the Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian ambassadors.

The objective was the evacuation of Polish citizens due to the re-opening of the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

“We talked to the Israeli ambassador about it yesterday,” Jablonski said. “We hope it will be approved soon.”