RAFAH BORDER CROSSING, Egypt — Hundreds of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip arrived here by the busload on Saturday to pass through the reopened border into Egypt, taking the first tangible steps out of a four-year Israeli blockade.

“I feel this is the start of freedom,” said Hasna el-Ryes, 45, a Gaza resident waiting to cross into Egypt so she could travel to visit sons studying in Britain. “You can’t imagine how much we have suffered.”

While a gradual loosening of the border controls over the last year had allowed some Gaza residents to cross — including registered students or those seeking medical treatment — many of those making the trip on Saturday said they felt a new stirring of hope at Egypt’s decision to stop enforcing Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory.

They cheered the decision as a humanitarian gesture to Gaza residents but also as an important concession to make possible the reconciliation deal that Egypt brokered between the militant group Hamas, which rules in Gaza, and the moderate Fatah faction, which governs the West Bank. And they saluted the Egyptian revolution that brought about a new spirit of independence.