Multiple news outlets, citing sources on the ground, reported on Monday, November 6, that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Hamas-controlled Gaza was closed despite an agreement brokered last week to let those with foreign passports and injured Palestinians through.
As of Monday afternoon local time, the Egyptian government claimed the border was open only for Egyptian and other foreign nationals, according to Reuters.
“The authority’s statement added that those who were not listed won’t be able to cross the border as per notification from the Egyptian authorities,” Reuters added.
The Rafah border crossing is the only crossing between Gaza, governed by the genocidal jihadist terror organization Hamas, and the outside world, connecting to Egypt. In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas massacre of over 1,200 civilians in Israel, the Egyptian government has repeatedly, and enthusiastically, rejected proposals to take in Palestinian refugees fleeing Hamas.
“We are prepared to sacrifice millions of lives to ensure that no one encroaches upon our territory,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said last week, referring to the possibility of taking in Palestinians. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi suggested forcing Palestinian civilians into Israel’s Negev Desert instead of allowing them to flee.
Egypt nonetheless agreed to a deal that let hundreds of foreigners, and a handful of injured Palestinians, through the border on November 1. The White House confirmed last week that about 300 Americans managed to leave Gaza while the border was open.
Palestinian passport control policemen affiliated with Hamas check the travel documents of people waiting to cross to Egypt at the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023. Scores of foreign passport holders trapped in Gaza started leaving the war-torn Palestinian territory on November 1 when the Rafah crossing to Egypt was opened up for the first time since the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, according to AFP correspondents. (MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel declared war on Hamas following the October 7 “al-Aqsa flood,” a harrowing terrorist attack in which Hamas terrorists murdered entire families in their homes in door-to-door raids. Hamas terrorists filmed themselves torturing and desecrating the corpses of their victims and reportedly engaged in sprees of torture, rape, and killing of children as young as babies. Israeli responders found evidence of children killed in front of their parents, decapitated babies, and other atrocities.
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The closing of the Rafah border crossing followed reports of Hamas terrorists attempting to use the agreement to let injured Palestinians out of Gaza to smuggle its terrorists into Egypt – and widespread evidence that Hamas is using Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure to hide weaponry, terrorist fighters, and core supplies, using civilians as human shields. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Friday that it conducted an airstrike on an ambulance in Gaza that Hamas was using to transport terrorists.
Shortly after that strike, the Rafah border crossing appeared to close. The Egyptian government newspaper al-Ahram reported on Sunday that the border shut down because Hamas had banned those approved to cross – foreigners and the injured – from leaving Gaza.
“No foreign passport holder will be able to leave the Gaza Strip until wounded people who need to be evacuated from hospitals in north Gaza are transported through the Rafah crossing,” an unnamed border official reportedly said, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Ahram noted that another anonymous official told the Washington Post that the crossing closed because “Hamas refused to cooperate today.”
The United Nations, which has vocally called for the uninterrupted opening of the border to let aid into Gaza but not to let Palestinians out, confirmed on Monday that the border had closed.
“This is reportedly due to the failure of Hamas, Israel and Egypt to reach an agreement regarding the safe evacuation of patients from northern Gaza,” Bloomberg reported, quoting a statement from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as reading on Monday. The news agency added that no “foreigners, dual-nationals, or injured Palestinians” were allowed out of Gaza all weekend.
The Emirati newspaper The National separately confirmed with a border guard on Monday that the crossing was closed – and suggested that the border would remain closed in response to Israel responding to Hamas using ambulances and hospitals to conceal its terrorists.
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“Under the border deal, the departure of foreign citizens depends on the Israeli military allowing injured Palestinians to safely leave Gaza for treatment, an official in the Egyptian city of Al Arish told The National,” the newspaper reported. “The crossing will remain closed to foreign citizens until assurances are given that all aspects of the deal will be respected, the official said.”
In a press conference on Sunday, the IDF explained that Hamas was exploiting civilian and, in particular, medical infrastructure to protect itself from Israeli operations to protect its own citizens from a repeat of the October 7 horror.
“Hamas is actively stopping civilians from moving to a safer area,” Real Admiral Daniel Hagari of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday, presenting photos of Hamas roadblocks built to stop civilians from moving south towards Egypt. Hagari also presented video evidence of Hamas terror tunnels near and surrounding Gaza hospitals, using the hospitals to protect the terrorists from Israeli attack and, in doing so, exposing Gaza’s infirm to military action. The Israeli military has also published evidence that Hamas uses ambulances to transport terrorists and steals fuel, needed to keep critical medical equipment running, from hospitals to be used in terrorist activities.
“Hamas moves fuel from the hospitals to terrorists … from Shifa Hospital to Jabaliya … because Jabaliya is a terror center,” Hagari said.
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The issue of Hamas using ambulances to transport terrorists rose to prominence on Friday after the IDF confirmed an airstrike on an ambulance “that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone.”
“A number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike. We intend to release additional information. More detailed information was shared with intelligence agencies who we work with,” the IDF explained. “We have information which demonstrates that Hamas’ method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.”
The administration of President Joe Biden has also shared information with journalists indicating that Hamas is attempting to “sneak” jihadists into Egypt using ambulances.
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Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.