The significance of the Rafah border crossing and why its reopening matters to Egypt and Gaza | Explained
The Hindu
The Hindu explains the significance of the Rafah border and why Egypt is war to reopen the border crossing with Gaza amid latest Israel-Hamas war.
The story so far: Over the past few days, thousands have fled south of the Gaza Strip after Israel ordered the evacuation of over one million civilians in the north — nearly half of the total population of the Palestinian enclave — ahead of an anticipated ground invasion by the Israeli military. The planned invasion was in response to the multi-front attack by Hamas on October 7 that killed more than 1,000 Israelis.
Even as civilians queue up at the border with hopes of escaping the conflict zone, the status of the sole remaining exit out of Gaza and the gateway for crucial supplies that the besieged area desperately needs — the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border — remains unclear. With food, water, electricity, fuel and other critical supplies running dangerously low, uncertainty now looms large over the fate of displaced Palestinians and trapped foreign nationals.
The U.S. on October 18, without giving a timeline, claimed that Egypt has agreed to reopen the crossing after Cairo said that the arterial crossing was not sealed but rendered inoperable by continuous airstrikes by the Israeli military.
Check out furthercoverage by The Hindu on the Israel-Palestine conflict here.
The Gaza Strip is a narrow 41-km designated Palestinian territory along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bound to the north and east by Israel, and to the south by Egypt. Israel controls Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters, which makes it extremely hard for Palestinians to pass through.
The enclave, home to more than two million people, currently has three functional entry and exit points — the Erez or the Beit Hanoun crossing in the north, and the Karem Abu Salem and Rafah crossings in the south. The Erez crossing, managed by Israel in the north, controls the movement of people between Gaza and the West Bank via Israel. The checkpoint is limited to “exceptional humanitarian cases” and prominent traders. Only a few individuals can exit Gaza because the mandatory Israeli-issued exit permit is not easy to obtain. The Israeli authorities allowed 58,606 exits from Gaza in August this year, according to the United Nations. The Karem Abu Salem point is also under Israel’s control but is exclusively for the movement of commercial goods. Both are presently shut.
Opposite the Erez crossing in the north is the Rafah point on the border with the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt — a vast, volatile Egyptian territory of mountains and desert which has been a centre of conflict for decades, starting with the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948.