Israel to reopen Rafah crossing with Egypt, advancing Trump's Gaza ceasefire plan

Israel announced Friday that it would reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt starting Sunday, a move that signals tangible progress on the ceasefire agreement brokered by the Trump administration. The crossing, Gaza's only direct link to the outside world, has been nearly sealed since May 2024, when Israel took control of it as part of a strategy to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons across the border. The reopening comes after the recovery of the last hostage's remains on Monday, an event that appears to have shifted the political calculus enough for Netanyahu to greenlight the move.

COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid to Gaza, said the crossing would permit what it called "limited movement of people only" in both directions. An Israeli official speaking anonymously to the Associated Press specified that the initial flow would be modest: fifty medical evacuees would be allowed to exit Gaza each day, and fifty Palestinians who fled during the war would be permitted to return. Both Israel and Egypt will screen individuals at the crossing itself, with additional Israeli vetting occurring in the adjacent corridor that remains under Israeli military control. European Union border patrol agents will oversee the operation.

The scale of need on both sides of the border is substantial. Gaza's health ministry reports that more than eighteen thousand Palestinian patients are wounded and require treatment abroad, while roughly twenty thousand sick and wounded Palestinians need care outside the territory. Egypt is currently hosting tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled Gaza during the heaviest fighting. At the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo, officials say at least thirty thousand Palestinians have registered for return to Gaza, though the embassy official who disclosed this figure spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the reopening remain under negotiation.

Before the war, Rafah was heavily restricted but still functioned as Gaza's primary crossing for people and goods. United Nations records from 2022 show more than 133,000 entries and 144,000 exits through the crossing that year, though many involved the same individuals crossing multiple times. Egyptian authorities permitted imports on 150 days annually, with more than 32,000 trucks of goods entering Gaza. The other four border crossings serving Gaza are shared with Israel, making Rafah the only gateway to another nation.

The reopening represents one of the first concrete steps in the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, which addresses far more complex issues: demilitarizing Gaza, establishing an alternative government to oversee reconstruction, and rebuilding an enclave that has been largely destroyed. Netanyahu has made clear that Israel's conditions for moving forward include disarming Hamas and destroying its remaining tunnel network. He stated this week that without these steps, there would be no reconstruction in Gaza—a position that effectively gives Israel leverage over the territory's future through its control of Rafah and other crossing points.

Gaza's health infrastructure has been decimated by the war, leaving advanced surgical procedures impossible within the territory. The brief opening of Rafah in early 2025 for medical evacuations during a short-lived ceasefire demonstrated both the urgent need and the mechanism for moving the most vulnerable. Those prioritized for evacuation have historically been children, cancer patients, and people suffering from severe physical trauma, most of whom received treatment in Egypt. It remains unclear whether the medical evacuees departing Sunday will be accompanied by caretakers or escorts, as has been the case at other points during the conflict.

The announcement follows statements from both Netanyahu and Ali Shaath, the newly appointed head of the Palestinian administrative committee governing Gaza's daily affairs, suggesting the crossing would open soon. The timing aligns with the broader ceasefire framework, though the conditions Netanyahu has attached to Gaza's reconstruction suggest that the crossing's reopening, while significant, is only the beginning of a much longer and more contentious process of determining what comes next.