Doctors stuck at bottleneck on Egypt-Gaza border

Rafah: Many local and foreign doctors are stuck on the Egypt-Gaza border after Egyptian authorities denied them entry into the area.

"This is a shame," said Anesthesiologist Dimitrios Mognie. "That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won't let us," he added.

Gaza's few hospitals have been swamped by "the numbers of injured" and health officials there reported more than 550 Palestinians dead and at least 2,500 wounded.

Egypt, the main mediator between Israel and Hamas, has said it would only open Rafah if moderate Palestinian forces of President Mahmoud Abbas are in charge of the crossing.

Calls to Egypt to ease the border bottleneck have increased, including from Hamas allies such as Iran.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said Iran has submitted a request to Egypt to set up a desert hospital near the Gaza Strip to receive wounded Gazans.

The Palestinian ambulances are not allowed to continue driving through Egypt. At the crossing, patients are taken out of the often poorly equipped Palestinian ambulances and transferred on gurneys to Egyptian ambulances.