Israel once again fails to comply with the calendar by once again postponing the reopening of the Rafah crossing, a key point for the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gazan enclave, whose opening was one of the measures included in the October agreement and which should have been fulfilled in the first phase of the ceasefire. But the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu has once again placed conditions on that step and makes the “limited” opening subject to the recovery of the body of the last Israeli hostage still in the Strip. Ran Gvili. All, despite the fact that Hamas has facilitated its location to international mediators.
“As part of President Trump’s 20-point plan, Israel has agreed to the limited reopening of the Rafah crossing, for foot traffic only and subject to an Israeli inspection mechanism,” the prime minister’s office said in an official statement. In that same note, the Israeli Executive now points out that the reopening of this border crossing with Egypt “was conditional on the return of all the live hostages and the maximum efforts of Hamas to locate and return the remains of the deceased hostages.” However, there is no trace of such a condition in the agreement. Quite the opposite: the calendar provided for the reopening during the first phase of the truce, without this being subject to new military operations by Israel.
As Benjamin Netanyahu himself has pointed out, the Israeli Army has been carrying out a “large-scale” military operation in the north of the Strip since the weekend to locate and recover the remains of the “deceased kidnapped Ran Gvili.” To this end, according to the current Israeli prime minister, the Israel Defense Forces are carrying out several “exhaustive search operations, using all available intelligence information,” in a cemetery located within the Yellow Line, the military withdrawal perimeter established in the ceasefire agreement of October 10, 2025. “Once the operation is completed and in accordance with the agreement with the United States, Israel will reopen the Rafah crossing,” adds the statement from the prime minister’s office.
Hamas, for its part, assured this Sunday that on this specific point it has already fulfilled its part of the agreement. The Islamist movement stated that it has provided the mediators – Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States – with all the information it has on the location of the hostage’s remains. “What confirms the veracity of our statement is that the enemy is conducting search operations in a specific location, based on the precise information provided by the Al Qasam brigades to the mediators,” he said in a statement.
The return of the bodies of the dead hostages is part of the first phase of the ceasefire, along with the release of the living captives, which was completed in October. Hamas has since handed over the remains of 27 of the 28 Israeli hostages included in the deal, a process the group has explained by “the enormous difficulties in locating them among tons of rubble” caused by Israeli bombing.
The reopening of Rafá constitutes one of the most sensitive points of the agreement. The crossing represents, in practice, the only means of entry and exit for the majority of the more than two million inhabitants of Gaza and has remained under Israeli military control on its Gazan side since 2024. Although Palestinian officials backed by the United States had announced this week that the crossing would open in the coming days, Israel has once again delayed that decision by introducing new conditions not initially foreseen.
Washington confirmed this month the start of the second phase of the plan, which contemplates an additional withdrawal of Israeli troops and the transfer of administrative control of the territory. However, sources cited by Reuters They point out that Israel intends to limit the number of Palestinians entering the Gaza Strip through Rafah to ensure that more people leave than enter, a strategy that reinforces the control of civilian flows.
Meanwhile, Ran Gvili’s family has publicly asked the Israeli Government not to reopen the border crossing until the policeman’s remains return to Israeli territory, internal pressure that adds to the diplomatic pulse around an agreement that Israel has once again postponed.
