ISRAEL has said it will allow a “limited reopening” of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt when the operation to locate the body of the last remaining Israeli captive in the Palestinian territory is completed.
The announcement from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office came late on Sunday as Palestinians mourned at least three people killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office said the Rafah crossing, which was supposed to have opened during the initial phase of a United States-brokered ceasefire in October, would reopen for the passage of people only.
It said the move is “conditioned on the return of all living [captives] and the execution of 100 percent effort on the part of Hamas to locate and return all deceased [captives]”.
All have been returned, except for the body of police officer Ran Gvili. The Israeli military said on Sunday it was searching a cemetery in northern Gaza near the “yellow line”, which marks off Israeli-controlled parts of the territory, while an Israeli military official said there were “several intelligence leads” regarding Gvili’s possible location.
Earlier on Sunday, Hamas said it had handed over the location of the remains of the Israeli soldier with “absolute transparency”, and that it had “fulfilled all our obligations in accordance with the ceasefire agreement”.
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said the group was “fully committed to closing this file permanently and have no interest in procrastination”.
“We call upon these mediators to uphold their responsibilities and compel the [Israeli] occupation to implement what has been agreed upon.”
The Rafah crossing is effectively the sole route in or out of Gaza for nearly all of the more than 2 million Palestinians who live there.
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The Gaza side of the crossing has been under Israeli military control since 2024.
The crossing was supposed to have reopened in “both directions” under the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, and pressure has been building on Israel and Hamas in recent weeks, with Washington declaring last week that the second phase of the truce – which calls for reconstruction of Gaza – was now under way.
But although Trump’s plan calls for a full reopening of Rafah, the statement from Netanyahu’s office on Sunday said access will be “limited”, and for “pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism”.
Analysts raised concerns that such a move would result in the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, a long-held Israeli goal.
“There are huge amounts of Palestinians in Egypt who’ve been stuck there in limbo for the past two years of Israel’s genocide. Many of them want to come back, or some want to come back, to maybe help rebuild or see their families.
But what Israel wants is for huge amounts of Palestinians to leave and not come back,” said Anthony Lowenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book on the Israeli arms and surveillance industry. “I fear that if this crossing reopens and is only monitored by Israel, that is the long-term goal.”
Lowenstein also noted out that a pedestrian-only reopening of Rafah would do nothing to move the tonnes of desperately-needed humanitarian supplies stranded in Egyptian warehouses.
“Ultimately, [this can happen] only if the international community presses Israel to allow aid in,” he added.