A Palestinian boy, hoping to cross into Egypt, stands behind a fence as he waits for a travel permit at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip on January 21. Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday for three days, officials said. Rafah is the only major crossing between impoverished Gaza, home to 1.8 million Palestinians, and the outside world that does not border Israel, which blockades the strip and allows passage mainly on humanitarian grounds. Egypt shut the crossing on October 25 after Islamist militants in Egypt's adjacent Sinai region killed 33 members of its security forces. Since then, it opened the crossing partially and on a few occasions to allow thousands of Palestinians to travel in and out of the Gaza Strip. Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa