The vital border point opened last week for the first time since 2024, one of the main requirements for the US-backed ceasefire. The crossing was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion about reopening operations.
Egypt’s Al Qahera television station said that Palestinians began crossing in both directions around noon on Sunday. Israel didn’t immediately confirm the information.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington this week, though the major subject of discussion will be Iran, his office said.
Delays and mistreatment accusations
Over the first four days of the crossing’s opening, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to UN data, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening.
Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that isn’t available in the territory. Those who have succeeded in crossing described delays and allegations of mistreatment by Israeli forces and other groups involved in the crossing, including an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab.
A group of Palestinian patients and wounded gathered Sunday morning in the courtyard of a Red Crescent hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, before making their way to the Rafah crossing with Egypt for treatment abroad, family members told The Associated Press.Amjad Abu Jedian, who was injured in the war, was scheduled to leave Gaza for medical treatment on the first day of the crossing’s reopening, but only five patients were allowed to travel that day, his mother, Raja Abu Jedian, said. Abu Jedian was shot by an Israeli sniper while he doing building work in the central Bureij refugee camp in July 2024, she said.
On Saturday, his family received a call from the World Health Organization notifying them that he is included in the group that will travel on Sunday, she said.
“We want them to take care of the patients (during their evacuation),” she said. “We want the Israeli military not to burden them.”
The Israeli defence branch that oversees the operation of the crossing didn’t immediately confirm the opening.
Heading back to Gaza
A group of Palestinians also arrived Sunday morning at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing to return to the Gaza Strip, Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News satellite television reported.
Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first few days of the crossing’s operation described hours of delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and Abu Shabab. A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.
The crossing was reopened on Feb. 2 as part of a fragile ceasefire deal to halt the Israel-Hamas war.
The Rafah crossing, an essential lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, was the only one in the Palestinian territory not controlled by Israel before the war. Israel seized the Palestinian side of Rafah in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.
Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients – along with two companions for each – would be allowed to leave, but far fewer people have so far crossed in both directions.
Hamas negotiations
A senior Hamas official, Khaled Mashaal, said the militant group is open to discuss the future of its arms as part of a “balanced approach” that includes the reconstruction of Gaza and protecting the Palestinian enclave from Israel.
Mashaal said the group has offered multiple options, including a long-term truce, as part of its ongoing negotiations with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators.
Hamas plans to agree to a number of “guarantees,” including a 10-year period of disarmament and an international peacekeeping force on the borders, “to maintain peace and prevent any clashes,” between the militants and Israel, Mashaal said at a forum in Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Israel has repeatedly demanded a complete disarmament and destruction of Hamas and its infrastructure, both military and civil.
Mashaal accused Israel of financing and arming militias, like the Abu Shabab group which operates in Israeli military-controlled areas in Gaza, “to create chaos” in the enclave.
In the forum, Mashaal was asked about Hamas’ position from US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. He didn’t offer a specific answer, but said that the group won’t accept “foreign intervention” in Palestinian affairs.
“Gaza is for the people of Gaza. Palestinians are for the people of Palestine,” he said. “We will not accept foreign rule.” (AP) GSP
