The Hamas-controlled Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza appealed on Tuesday to the Egyptian authorities to open Rafah border crossing urgently and to ease the movement of sick people.

The ministry also called on the international community "to stand by the citizens of Gaza and its besieged patients, to bear down Israel to end its constant attacks witnessed by the international community."

According to recent figures, 228 patients have died due to lack of external medical access since Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza Strip in 2007.

Egypt also maintains the closure of its border with Gaza since a US-brokered protocol said the Rafah border crossing can not open without the presence of European Union monitors and security forces of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The EU monitors and Abbas' forces were unable to work in Gaza anymore after Hamas routed the pro-Abbas forces and drove them to the West Bank in June 2007.

Egypt opens the crossing partially from time to time for humanitarian cases.