Gaza Strip: Israel needs to reopen the Rafah border crossing for passenger site visitors – underneath one situation | EUROtoday

After finishing a navy operation to search out the final hostage physique within the Gaza Strip, Israel needs to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the coastal space to restricted passenger site visitors. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace introduced this final evening. Upon completion of this operation and in accordance with agreements with the United States, Israel will open the crossing underneath full Israeli management. However, a timetable was not given.

In the assertion, Israel calls for that the Islamist terrorist group Hamas make each effort to find the physique of the Israeli hostage and hand it over to Israel. At the identical time, it’s mentioned that the Israeli armed forces are at present finishing up an operation to exhaust all the data collected, discover and convey again the physique of the police officer.

The Times of Israel quoted a US official as saying the operation was anticipated to final a number of days. Accordingly, the Rafah border crossing might be reopened by the top of this week.

However, it’s unclear whether or not this may even make it doable for refugee Palestinians stranded in Egypt to return. The Rafah border crossing, which has been closed for nearly a yr, is taken into account a very powerful crossing into the Gaza Strip.

Before Israel agreed to the restricted reopening of the Rafah border crossing for passenger site visitors solely, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke on Saturday night with US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner in regards to the second part of Trump’s peace plan. Ali Shaath, head of the brand new Palestinian authorities of consultants on Gaza, had beforehand introduced on Thursday that the border crossing can be opened in each instructions.