The Israeli military said late Sunday that it would reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt in both directions starting Wednesday, after shutting it for more than two weeks.
The reopening would restore a key exit and entry point for Gazans, but only under Israeli security clearance and tight limits on movement, underscoring how even basic travel remains tightly controlled as the war expands and regional tensions persist.
The Israeli occupation coordinator said on Facebook that Rafah would reopen in both directions with limited movement of people, after a security assessment for travelers and a review of the conditions for reopening the crossing.
He said the crossing would operate under Israeli security restrictions because of threats tied to the continuing war on Iran. He said travel would resume under the mechanism previously agreed by Hamas and Israel as part of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement signed in Egypt last October.
He said Gazans would be allowed to move in both directions in coordination with Egypt after travelers and returnees obtain Israeli security clearance to travel, under the supervision of the European Union mission.
He added that travelers would undergo additional screening and questioning at the Regavim checkpoint, run by the Israeli military on the Palestinian side, which remains under Israeli control.
Israeli authorities had approved the reopening of the Rafah crossing in early February, after the United States announced the start of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, allowing limited numbers of patients and their companions to travel and a similar number of stranded people to return.
That process was carried out under tight Israeli security procedures, amid accounts that some returnees were detained for hours and abused.
But the Israeli military decided at the end of February to close all Gaza crossings, including Rafah, citing security conditions after the joint Israeli-US war on Iran was announced. The closure prevented Gaza patients and their companions from moving in either direction.
Police forces targeted
Meanwhile, in central Gaza, the Israeli military killed nine members of Gaza’s Interior Ministry police on Sunday evening, including Col. Iyad Abu Youssef, director of intervention and public order police in the central governorate.
An eyewitness told Al Manassa the force was directly targeted by a missile from a surveillance drone that hit a police jeep belonging to Gaza’s Interior Ministry as it was traveling on Salah Al-Din Street near the entrance to Maghazi refugee camp, killing everyone inside.
He said the strike came without warning, although the vehicle was clearly marked as belonging to the police.
Hamas police vehicles had only recently reappeared and begun moving in areas the Israeli military withdrew from several months ago, after the ceasefire agreement was signed about five months ago.
Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security condemned what it called the occupation’s deliberate targeting of the police vehicle in a statement posted on its WhatsApp account and reviewed by Al Manassa.
It said the vehicle was carrying nine officers and personnel in the central governorate, who had been on duty monitoring markets and maintaining security and public order during Ramadan.
The ministry mourned its officers and personnel as “martyrs of duty,” as it described them, and said its security and police agencies would continue carrying out their work to preserve security and stability despite the challenges imposed by the occupation on Gaza.
It said the continued targeting of police headquarters and the killing of officers and personnel was “a war crime” and a violation of international humanitarian law, because police facilities and duties are protected civilian institutions that must not be targeted.
In another strike, the Israeli military killed an entire family when their apartment in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza came under direct artillery fire on Sunday.
The bodies of four victims arrived at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, a medical source told Al Manassa.
The source said those killed were a young man, his wife, who was pregnant with twins, and their only child, in addition to a child from a neighboring family. Eight other people were wounded in the direct artillery strike.
As in the earlier attack, the occupation targeted the family’s apartment without prior warning, an eyewitness told Al Manassa. He said a shell hit the family’s bedroom directly, killing them in the morning while they were asleep.
Gaza’s Palestinian Health Ministry announced that the number of people killed in Israeli bombardment since the ceasefire was declared last October had risen to 663 because of continuing Israeli strikes, and that the toll from the genocidal war since October 2023 had climbed to more than 72,239 dead.
