Gaza’s border crossing to Egypt reopens in a key step for truce but only few Palestinians can cross

CAIRO (AP) — Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step in the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic development on the ground as few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will be going into the war-torn territory.

Within the first couple of hours of the opening, no one was actually seen crossing in or out of Gaza. An Egyptian official said 50 Palestinians would cross in each direction on the first day of Rafah’s operation.

About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated Gaza via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials. Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home.

State-run Egyptian media and an Israeli security official also confirmed the reopening. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

Before the war, Rafah was the main crossing for people moving in and out of Gaza. The territory’s handful of other crossings are all shared with Israel. Under the terms of the ceasefire, which went into effect in October, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live.

Violence still continued across the coastal territory Monday, and Gaza hospital officials said an Israeli navy ship had fired on a tent camp, killing a 3-year-old Palestinian boy. Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.

About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive Palestinian patients evacuated from Gaza through Rafah, authorities said. Also, the Egyptian Red Crescent said it has readied “safe spaces” on the Egyptian side of the crossing to support those evacuated from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began — a move that cut off what was previously the main outlet for Palestinians needing medical treatment unavailable in Gaza.

Israel has said it and Egypt will vet people for exit and entry through the Rafah crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents with a small Palestinian presence. The numbers of travelers are expected to increase over time, if the system is successful.

Fearing that Israel could use the crossing to push Palestinians out of the enclave, Egypt has repeatedly said it must be open for them to enter and exit Gaza. Historically, Israel and Egypt have vetted Palestinians applying to cross.

A 3-year-old Palestinian was killed Monday when Israel navy hit tents sheltering displaced people on the coast of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, Palestinian hospital authorities said.

According to the Nasser hospital, which received the body, the attack happened in Muwasi, a tent camp area on the Gaza Strip’s coast. The boy was the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the October ceasefire in Gaza.

More than 520 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since October 10, according to the strip’s health ministry. The casualties since the ceasefire, which UNICEF said include more than 100 children, are among the over 71,700 Palestinians killed since the start of Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians.

The ministry, which is part of Gaza’s Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing in May 2024, calling it part of efforts to combat arms-smuggling for the militant Hamas group. The crossing was briefly opened for the evacuation of medical patients during a ceasefire in early 2025. Israel had resisted reopening the Rafah crossing, but the recovery of the remains of the last hostage in Gaza cleared the way to move forward.

The reopening is seen as a key step as the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10 moves into its second phase.

The truce halted more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas that began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its first phase called for the exchange of all hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, an increase in badly needed humanitarian aid and a partial pullback of Israeli troops.

The second phase of the ceasefire deal is more complicated. It calls for installing the new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and taking steps to begin rebuilding.

___

Federman reported from Jerusalem.

___

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war