Israel reopened the border between Gaza and Egypt on Monday for a limited number of people on foot, allowing a small number of Palestinians to leave the enclave and some of those who escaped the war to return for the first time.
The crossing, in Israeli-held territory in what was once a city of a quarter of a million people that Israel has since completely demolished and depopulated, is the sole route in or out for nearly all of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents.
It has been largely shut for most of the war, and reopening it to give even a small number of Gaza residents access to the outside world is one of the last major steps required under the initial phase of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached in October.
Entry And Exit
A Palestinian source said that on the first day, 50 Palestinians were expected to enter Gaza, where they will face stringent Israeli security checks, and a similar number would be permitted to leave.
Those allowed to enter would be among the more than 100,000 Palestinians who had been able to escape Gaza in the early months of the war.
By mid-morning, it was not yet clear how many, if any, had yet crossed. An Israeli security official confirmed Rafah had opened “for both entry and exit”.
Israel seized the border crossing in May 2024, about nine months into the Gaza war that was brought to a tenuous halt by the October ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Reopening the crossing was one of the requirements under the first phase of Trump’s broader plan to stop fighting between Israel and Hamas militants. In January, Trump declared the start of the second phase, meant to see the sides negotiate Gaza’s future governance and reconstruction.
Even as the crossing reopened, Israeli strikes killed at least four Palestinians on Monday, including a three-year-old boy, in separate incidents in the north and south of the Strip. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incidents.
Israeli Inspection
In the first nine months of the war, some 100,000 Palestinians exited to Egypt through the Rafah crossing. Some were sponsored by aid groups. Some are believed to have paid bribes to secure permission to enter Egypt.
After Israeli forces swept into the area, they closed the crossing, apart from a brief opening for the evacuation of medical patients during a ceasefire in early 2025.
The closure cut off an important route for wounded and sick Palestinians to seek medical care outside Gaza, with only a few thousand allowed out for medical treatment in third countries by other routes through Israel over the past year.
Palestinians seeking to cross at Rafah after the reopening will require Israeli security approval, three Egyptian sources said. Reinforced concrete walls, topped with barbed wire, have been installed along the crossing area, the sources said.
Gazans entering and exiting will have to walk for 2.5 km (1.5 miles) along a track through the Israeli-held border area known as the Philadelphi corridor, the sources said.
At the crossing, they will have to pass through three separate gates, including one administered by the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority under the supervision of a European Union task force but controlled remotely by Israel.
(with inputs from Reuters)
