Gaza: Rafah crossing reopens under Israeli restrictions - The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11The Rafah crossing is the only way to get in and out of Gaza that doesn't go through Israel. It's kind of Gaza's artery to the world. The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been partially reopened after being closed for nearly two years. A few Palestinians have now crossed into Egypt for medical treatment. And what we saw was really a symbolic opening. I think nothing to even begin to meet both the need for people to seek medical treatment outside Gaza and the desire of Palestinians to go back to their families and their homes, devastated as they are. A small number of medical evacuees have been able to leave Gaza via the newly reopened RAFA crossing.

0:46So is this a step forward in the fragile ceasefire? From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hopp.

0:58Joining me is Emma Graham Harrison, The Guardian's Chief Middle East Correspondent. Yesterday, the RAFA crossing, the crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, reopened for the first time in two years. There was supposed to be a transfer of 150 patients needing urgent medical care from the Strip to Egypt, and 50 Palestinians were supposed to be able to return home to the Gaza Strip. But what actually happened? The Rafa Crossing is the only way to get in and out of Gaza that doesn't go through Israel. So it's kind of Gaza's artery to the world. And it's been closed since May 2024. That means that there's really been almost no way into or out of Gaza for anyone.

1:41We focus on people who are in medical need, patients. But, you know, that also means, for instance, students who want to study, people who, in a war zone, it's hard to think about. but you know if you have a job offer somewhere else just it's been impossible to get out it's also been impossible to get in you know obviously there's many perhaps more people we think of who want to leave than want to go in but one of the people who was interviewed yesterday was a mother who'd left Gaza with one of her children who was injured to seek medical treatment but had another I think 11 children still inside Gaza and she wanted to get back to them she'd spent nearly two years separated from her other children so it's not just a place for medical evacuation it's really Gaza's connection to the world.

2:23Yes, so what you're describing is not just medical patients but also people just wanting to have some semblance of a family life be it to see family and friends or study or seek a job. But in terms of the medical patients I mean it's been reported that there are 20 ,000 people within the Gaza Strip who are in very urgent need of medical care around half of that number are cancer patients And I was horrified to be that one in five are children. So just to give that some context, there's really two types of patients. There's people who've been injured during this war. The total number of injured is creeping towards 200 ,000 at the same time that the war was injuring them.

3:04Israeli attacks were devastating the hospital, so it's almost impossible to get health care. And then there's people who have the type of illnesses that we see everywhere in the world. Cancer, diabetes, people who need liver transplants. and that type of medicine is also impossible in Gaza. And so many of these are really urgent cases. For instance, there was a woman on that list who needed a liver transplant, had a donor lined up, wasn't allowed out in time and died last week while she was waiting for her evacuation. So really for these people, their only hope of getting better is leaving Gaza.

3:36Israel hasn't actually said officially how many people it's going to let in and out. We've seen reports in Israeli media quoting security sources saying that 150 people will be let out each day, 50 people will be let in. Those figures in themselves are pretty contentious, because as you can see, over the long term, that will lead to a depopulation, it will lead to a decrease in the Palestinian population of Gaza. But at that rate, you know, it's going to take, even if it was working, that would mean some of these people who are critically ill would be waiting for a year just to get out of Gaza to see a doctor.

4:07And Emma, so we had the first crossings yesterday at the Refra Crossing. What is actually happening at the border there? Because there are talks Talks of serious delays on the Israeli security checks, right? What have you been hearing? I mean, absolutely. First, the crossing was supposed to open on Sunday. Then it didn't. They said they were doing checks. Then it was supposed to open yesterday. And what we saw was really a symbolic opening. I think the latest reports I saw said that five patients were let out with caregivers and around a dozen people were allowed to enter Gaza. So really just a sort of symbolic crossing.

4:42nothing to even begin to meet both the need for people to seek medical treatment outside Gaza and the desire of Palestinians to go back to their families and their homes, devastated as they are. The devastation that they are returning to seems beyond comprehension, but also they are facing continued Israeli bombardment, right, with frequent violations of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement and more than 30 people killed in Israeli airstrikes over the weekend. So there are pauses in the violence, but it continues. Yeah, I mean, I think many people would say that ceasefire at this point is a really questionable term, that the total number of people killed since sort of Trump's peace plan for Gaza was agreed in October is now past 500.

5:27And, you know, most parts of the world, if you had, I think last time I checked, it was 520. You have 520 people killed in the space of sort of four months, less than four months. That would be considered an active conflict. That's a really high rate of death. So, yeah, I think it's really questionable. Should this be called a ceasefire? But last week you reported, Emma, on the fact that Israeli authorities had admitted for the first time that the Gaza Health Authority estimate of the total death toll since 2023 as around 70 ,000 was accurate. How significant a moment was that? It's something that Israel has vehemently denied until now.

6:10Yeah, so it's pretty shocking, actually, because for over two years now, you've seen Israeli officials either outright rejecting the toll compiled by health authorities in Gaza or sort of casting aspersions on it, talking about it as the Hamas toll, as if it's compiled by sort of the militant group themselves, rather than health bureaucrats who have a very strong track record of producing accurate data over multiple conflicts. And then you had this sort of about face, which was done in a very strange way. It was essentially off the record briefing to the Israeli press. No foreign journalists were reported and no named officials.

6:45But it was an official shift in stance. And most of the Israeli media who were there didn't even report it, which is, for me, was in some ways as shocking as the news itself, because we've seen, we've reported ourselves, the military has known for a long time that that figure is fundamentally broadly reliable. Yeah, it's striking that that change would not be more widely reported in Israeli media, Emma. But also, as you say, I mean, with clear, repeated violations from the Israelis of the terms of phase one of the ceasefire agreement, that seems worrying, doesn't it, as we're moving into phase two of the agreement, which is substantially more complex.

7:23This should be a positive, hopeful time. A plan for the future of Gaza is moving into a second phase. The reality is that it took much longer to get here than it should. Israel still controls more than half of Gaza. They're meant to withdraw. Are they going to? Israel says they're not going to do anything. They're not going to pull back. They're not going to sort of move forward unless there's demilitarisation of Hamas. That's a very big question who's going to do it in theory on paper that's meant to be done by this so-called international security force that trump's plan set up for gaza the international security force doesn't exist no one's yet firmly committed troops and the countries have said that they might commit troops have said very clearly they don't want to be involved in trying to demilitarize hamas because that would essentially mean as things stand without an agreement to demilitarize hamas fighting Hamas.

8:15And, you know, there's so far no takers to sort of do that. People in Israel and in the US saying that reconstruction can only start in Israeli-controlled bits of Gaza. What does that mean about how long Israel plans to stay there? What does that mean for Palestinians in Gaza who overwhelmingly live in the part of Gaza, the minority of Gaza that's not controlled by Israel? And there's an absolutely desperate need for reconstruction. We talked earlier about whether this is a ceasefire in terms of attacks stopping. There's also a question of whether it's a significant ceasefire in terms of aid getting in.

8:50There's still a lot of hunger in Gaza. There's still severe shortages of shelter. We've seen in the last few weeks of winter rain, multiple children dying of hypothermia. And there had at some point been hopes that the opening of the Rafa crossing was going to help with that. If you look at what's happening, it's really more a symbolic reconnection, not a meaningful one. And there's a Palestinian analyst, Mohammed Shahada, born in Gaza, who said this moment has been robbed by the insane amount of Israeli restrictions, loopholes and caveats that's rendered Rafah's reopening symbolic at most, if not a sham.

9:23Anyone crossing into Gaza will get stuck and caged and anyone crossing out will get banished and exiled. What a powerful quote. Thank you, Emma, for your reporting. Thank you. that's it for today my huge thanks again to emma graham harrison you can keep up with her reporting over at theguardian.com thanks for listening to this episode of the latest the new evening edition of today in focus we'll be with you every weekday evening with what you need to know about the story everyone's talking about in around 10 minutes today in focus we'll be back with you as normal tomorrow morning and we'll be back tomorrow night this episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff.

10:01The producer was Bryony Mawr. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

10:20This is The Guardian.