A limited number of Palestinians were able to travel between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday after Gaza’s Rafah crossing reopened after a two-day closure, Egyptian state media reported. The vital border point opened last week for the first time since 2024, one of the main requirements for the U.S.-backed ceasefire.
The crossing was closed on Friday and Saturday due to confusion about reopening operations, AP reported.
Egypt’s Al Qahera television station said that Palestinians began crossing in both directions around noon on Sunday. Israel did not immediately confirm.
Egyptian state media also reported on Sunday that the country was preparing to receive another group of Palestinians who were wounded or sick and seeking treatment in Egyptian hospitals.
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.
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 United Nations data, after Israel retrieved the body of the last hostage held in Gaza and several American officials visited Israel to press for the opening.
Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that is not available in the war-shattered 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 was building traditional bathrooms 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 defense branch that oversees the operation of the crossing did not immediately confirm the opening.
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 Rafah border crossing reopened Feb. 2 as a key step in the current ceasefire deal, which halted more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas. However, traffic was limited. State-run Egyptian media and an Israeli official confirmed at the time that the reopening was largely symbolic, since not many people would be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods could enter.
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.
An essential lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, the Rafah crossing 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.
[/gpt3]
