Israel has resisted the notion that the Palestinian Authority would control postwar Gaza, despite the urging of the Biden administration. President Trump’s vision for who might rule the enclave after the conflict remains unclear.
The office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said that the “practical involvement of the Palestinian Authority” would be only “its stamp on the passports.” Israeli forces would remain “positioned around the crossing” and no one would be allowed through without the approval of Israel’s security services, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said.
Omer Dostri, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, confirmed that the crossing had been reopened to allow some people to leave. No people or commercial goods would be allowed into Gaza through Rafah for the time being, he wrote in a text message.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on social media that the European border monitoring mission had deployed at the Rafah crossing on Friday to “support Palestinian border personnel.” The mission, known as EUBAM Rafah, has had practically no role at the border since the Hamas takeover in 2007.
In recent days, Mr. Trump has suggested on multiple occasions that Gazans should be evacuated from the enclave en masse and taken in by Jordan and Egypt.
“You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Mr. Trump said of Gaza last weekend. “I don’t know. Something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now.”
On Friday, a small group of Egyptians demonstrated on their side of the Rafah border crossing as part of a protest against Palestinian displacement from Gaza. Rallies in autocratic Egypt are almost always staged or sponsored by the authorities.
Israeli forces swept into Rafah last May and captured the entire border corridor with Egypt, including the crossing. Israel accused Hamas of using its control of the border to smuggle in weapons to arm its forces and vowed not to allow the group to take over there again.
With the crossing shuttered, Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials held repeated rounds of talks but could not agree on terms to reopen the border. Gazans who had hoped to flee the devastated enclave were mostly trapped inside, although some sick and wounded people were allowed to leave through Israeli territory.
Others did not make it out in time. Fida Ghanem, a Palestinian woman suffering from cancer, was supposed to leave in May before the border crossing closed. She died in early June without access to treatment in Gaza.
Samah Saad, whose husband, Sameh, was struck in the leg by an artillery shell last year, has been waiting for months in the hope that the Rafah crossing might open and allow them to seek medical treatment abroad.
“We’ve been waiting for over a year without the right treatment. We’re exhausted,” said Ms. Saad, 37. “Let them open the crossing, by God, we’ve lived through enough.”
Here’s what else to know:
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Lebanon strikes: Amid the extension of a fragile cease-fire, Israel carried out a series of airstrikes overnight targeting the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, a bastion of support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that was hit hard during the war. Lebanon’s health ministry said that at least two people were killed and 10 others wounded in the attacks, which followed airstrikes in southern Lebanon earlier this week that injured two dozen people. The Israeli military said the overnight strikes had targeted an underground weapon-manufacturing facility used by Hezbollah, along with areas along the Syrian border used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. The attacks came after Israel said it had intercepted a Hezbollah surveillance drone on Thursday that was approaching Israel’s northern border. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Nick Cumming-Bruce and Euan Ward contributed reporting.
