JERUSALEM — Israel says it will reopen the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt to travelers on foot within days, a move that will allow Palestinians who fled the enclave during the two-year war to return home for the first time.
Aid officials said they hope the reopening of the border crossing will also allow the evacuation of people in Gaza who need medical treatment abroad — estimated at more than 18,000, according to the World Health Organization.
In a social media post on Monday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the border crossing, near the city of Rafah, will be reopened after the conclusion of searches in Gaza for the remains of the last captive not yet returned to Israel.
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Later on Monday, the Israeli Army announced that it had finally found the remains of the captive — Sergeant Major Ran Gvili, a police officer shot during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 — after months of searches in Gaza.
Israel agreed to allow the Rafah crossing to reopen as part of the ceasefire agreement reached in October. But Israeli leaders demanded that Hamas first return the bodies of all Israelis and foreigners killed in Gaza.
Now, with Gvili’s body back in Israel, that mission has been completed.
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Israel’s decision to reopen the border — where both Israel and Egypt must impose strict screening on who can cross — represents a step forward for the fragile ceasefire with Hamas. Still, the next steps to implement President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which includes disarming Hamas and sending an international force to the territory, remain shrouded in uncertainty.
At least 100,000 Palestinians have left Gaza since the start of the war, according to Palestinian officials. Now, many of them will have to decide whether to return to the enclave, much of which is in ruins after two years of Israeli bombing.
The Israeli government continues to refuse to allow foreign journalists into Gaza. At a Supreme Court hearing on Monday morning, he argued that opening the territory to the press would put Israeli soldiers at risk, even though the ceasefire is more than three months old and Israel allows international aid workers to enter.
For foreign journalists, Gaza has been off-limits since the start of the war in 2023, with the exception of a small number of reporters invited for short, tightly controlled visits escorted by Israeli soldiers. An old petition presented by foreign journalists seeking authorization to cover the conflict from inside Gaza was analyzed by the Israeli Supreme Court on Monday, after successive postponements.
At oral argument, Judge Ruth Ronnen suggested that reopening the Rafah crossing could allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza via Egypt. But Foreign Press Association lawyer Gilead Sher argued that the organization’s 400 members, including employees of The New York Times, should be able to enter from Israel, where they are based.
“We see international aid coming into the Strip every day, we see international aid workers, UN officials and Israelis coming in,” as well as World Bank representatives, Sher said, according to a joint press report. “But foreign journalists are banned.”
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A government lawyer, Yonatan Nadav, said that allowing journalists into Gaza would pose risks to Israeli soldiers, but agreed to detail those risks only in a closed court session.
A lawyer for the Israel Union of Journalists, Amir Basha, also defended the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza, claiming that they represent a vital — and missing — source of independent information, alongside the Israeli Army and Palestinian reporters already in the enclave.
“No one is questioning the value of aid workers,” he said. “But journalists should not be last, they should be first among equals. Because of the information that journalists provide to the public, it is not possible for the Israeli public’s right to information to be last in line.”
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The Supreme Court has not said when it will issue a decision.
The Rafah crossing is close to what was once the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, now largely devastated by Israeli forces.
In the first nine months of the war, tens of thousands of Palestinians managed to flee to Egypt through the crossing. Some were sponsored by international humanitarian aid organizations that coordinated their departure with Israel and Egypt. Many others paid exorbitant bribes to intermediaries linked to the Egyptian government to obtain exit documents.
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In May 2024, this fragile escape route was cut off when Israeli forces advanced along the Gaza side of the border and took control of the crossing. Israel and Egypt were unable to reach an agreement on conditions for reopening the crossing point, which has remained largely closed since then.
The closure cut off a crucial route for seriously ill and injured Palestinians seeking medical treatment outside the enclave’s devastated healthcare system. Some Palestinians, such as cancer patients requiring chemotherapy, have died without access to adequate treatment.
The potential for renewed conflict in Gaza is still very real. Hamas has consolidated its control over half of the enclave, the Israeli Army controls the other half, and the majority of the population remains huddled in makeshift camps or among the rubble of partially destroyed homes.
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Kamel Ayyad, 53, fled to Egypt in November 2023 with his wife and three daughters. Although he says he hopes to return to Gaza, he notes that most of his friends and acquaintances consider returning now too risky.
“Gaza is still going through a cold war, or an unofficial war — it’s not a stable place,” said Ayyad, an employee at Saint Porphyry Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza. “Nobody wants to gamble with their family’s life.”
But it is far from clear how long Palestinians will be able to remain in Egypt, which has made clear that their presence must be temporary. “We are between a rock and a hard place,” said Ayyad.
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