In the first few days, only 50 people will be able to travel under very restricted conditions
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, closed since 2024, reopened this Monday (2) in both directions for the inhabitants, who will be able to cross the border under very strict conditions.
The UN and humanitarian organizations have been calling for the border to be opened, but for now it will remain closed to international aid entering the Palestinian territory, devastated by two years of war between Israel and Hamas.
A high-ranking Israeli official announced this Monday morning, following the arrival of the European surveillance mission EUBAM Rafah.
According to an Egyptian media outlet, in the first few days only 50 people will be allowed to transit. Israeli television Kan announced that around 150 people will leave Gaza this Monday, including 50 sick people, and another 50 will arrive from Egypt. The border will open for about six hours a day, he added.
A source at the border told AFP that only a few dozen people arrived on the Egyptian side in the hope of crossing.
Israeli authorities, who control the border post on the Palestinian side, have not yet mentioned a possible increase in aid to Gaza, which is mired in a serious humanitarian crisis.
International aid from Egypt currently transits through the Israeli border post of Kerem Shalom, a few kilometers from Rafah.
“Life jacket”
The sick and injured waited impatiently the reopening of the only passage between Gaza and the outside world that does not pass through Israel.
“The longer I wait, the worse my condition gets, and I fear that the doctors will have to amputate both my legs,” said Zakaria, a 39-year-old man injured in 2024 in an Israeli bombing raid.
“The passage of It’s a lifesaver”, says another injured man, Mohamed Nasir. “I need a serious operation that is not available in Gaza”, he explained.
Asma Al Arqan, a Palestinian student, says that the opening of Rafah is synonymous with a better future because it would allow her to continue her “studies abroad”.
The full reopening of Rafah is foreseen in American President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by the Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
This attack caused the death of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official data.
Since that date, at least 71,795 Palestinians died in the small coastal territory due to the Israeli military campaign of reprisal, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, under the authority of Hamas. The UN considers this number to be reliable.
Fragile ceasefire
Israel and Hamas accuse each other daily of violating the ceasefire in force since October 10. At least 32 people died on Saturday in Israeli attacks, Gaza Civil Defense said. The Israeli army says it acted after militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The spokesman for the Palestinian movement in Gaza, Hazem Qasem, warned on Sunday that “any obstruction or precondition imposed by Israel” would constitute “a violation” of the truce.
The Israeli authorities conditioned the crossings on obtaining “a prior security authorization”, in coordination with Egypt and under the supervision of the European mission in Rafah.
Palestinians who wish to return to Gaza will be able to take a limited amount of luggage, without metallic or electronic objects, and with limited amounts of medicines, according to the Palestinian embassy in Cairo.
The border post is located in a sector still occupied by the Israeli Army, on the other side of the yellow line, which marks its withdrawal from approximately half of the Gaza Strip under the first phase of the Trump plan.
Its reopening should also allow the entry into Gaza, on a date still unknown, of the 15 members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), in charge of managing the territory during a transition period under the authority of the “Peace Council” chaired by Donald Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P21GsuPUeiE
*With AFP
