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Palestinians And aid workers are anxiously awaiting the reopening of the Rafah border crossing, which is Gaza The Strip’s lifeline for food and other aid and its only gateway to the outside world that was not controlled. israel before the war.
Crossing between Gaza and egypt It will likely be reopened on Sunday, Israel’s foreign minister said Thursday, although it was unclear whether it would be opened for both aid deliveries and the flow of people in and out of the territory.
With much of Gaza reduced to rubble and vulnerable to famine, it is in need of massive supplies of fuel, food, medicine and tents. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher Said on Thursday that he was headed to the crossing and that he expected the route to be “packed with trucks” as part of a huge increase in aid after the peace deal.
Here’s why crossing is so important.
A ‘lifeline’ for Gaza
Before the war, Rafah was bustling with goods and people moving to and from Egypt and Gaza, home to about 2.3 million Palestinians. Although there are four other border crossings in Gaza, they are shared with Israel, and only Rafah connects the territory to the other neighboring country.
Egypt tightened its restrictions on traffic through the Rafah crossing after Hamas-led militants invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. Since Israel took control of the Gaza Strip in May 2024 as part of its offensive that killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, it closed the crossing except for occasional medical evacuations, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Reopening the Rafah crossing would make it easier for Gazans to seek medical treatment, travel internationally or visit family in Egypt, home to thousands of Palestinians. It would also help Gaza’s devastated economy, as Palestinian-produced olive oil and other olive oil products are sold widely in Egypt and throughout the Arab world.
Closing the crossing was “breaking the backbone that many families relied on as a lifeline,” said Adel Amr, who works in the West Bank-based transportation sector and is trying to organize aid shipments into Gaza.
He said, “The crossing is a lifeline for our families in Gaza. It was the only safe passage for people who wanted to travel from the Gaza Strip to the outside world.”
what comes next?
On Wednesday, 400 trucks full of aid passed through the Egyptian side on their way to Gaza and through a buffer zone toward the Israeli-controlled crossing a few kilometers (miles) away. However, it is unclear whether the aid has passed Israeli security oversight and reached those who desperately need it, although the World Food Program has said some of its trucks are arriving.
The Gaza side of the Rafah Crossing was heavily damaged during the war, and it is unknown whether repairs are underway. Once it reopens — perhaps as early as Sunday — Israel has agreed to stick to humanitarian conditions laid out for the January 2025 ceasefire, including allowing a certain number of trucks of aid into Gaza per day.
As per the ceasefire agreement Hamas will have no role in running Gaza, it is unclear who will run the area of the Rafah crossing after the war ends.
Sami al-Erian, a professor of public affairs at Istanbul Zaim University who runs the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, said no matter what happens, the crossing should be “run entirely by the Palestinians” with some help from the United Nations or the European Union.
The European Union said this week it is ready to redeploy a long-standing humanitarian mission to the Rafah crossing if it is safe to do so.
“This is a Palestinian city – a Palestinian city. And Palestinians should primarily comprise the majority of people coming in and out (of Rafah),” al-Erian said, adding that he thinks Israel should have “no veto power” on the entry and flow of aid and goods and Palestinians through the crossing.
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Associated Press reporters Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.