By Haseeb Alwazeer and Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA/CAIRO, Feb 2 (Reuters) – 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.
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 supervision of a European Union task force but controlled remotely by Israel.
FOREIGN JOURNALISTS BARRED FROM GAZA
Despite the reopening of Rafah, Israel is still refusing to allow the entry of foreign journalists, who have been banned from Gaza since the start of the war. Reporting from inside Gaza for international media including Reuters is carried out solely by journalists who live there, hundreds of whom have been killed.
Israel’s Supreme Court is considering a petition by the Foreign Press Association that demands foreign journalists be allowed to enter Gaza. Government lawyers argue this could pose risks to Israeli soldiers. The FPA says the public is being deprived of a vital source of independent information.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire, major combat was halted, hostages held in Gaza were released in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and a surge in humanitarian aid was promised.
Israeli forces still hold more than 53% of Gaza’s territory, where they have ordered residents out and demolished many remaining buildings. The enclave’s residents are now confined to a strip along the coast, where most live either in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
The next phase of Trump’s plan foresees Hamas giving up its weapons and relinquishing control to an internationally backed administration that would oversee reconstruction, including luxury residential buildings along the Mediterranean coast.
Many Israelis and Palestinians see this as unrealistic. Hamas has yet to agree to give up its weapons and Israel says it is prepared to restart the war to disarm the group by force.
The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel retaliated, destroying much of Gaza and killing more than 70,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities.
Since the October deal was struck, Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed more than 500 Palestinians, health officials say, while militants have killed four Israeli soldiers.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce the previous day when troops clashed with militants in Rafah.
(Writing by Rami Ayyub, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Jon Boyle, Peter Graff)
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