JERUSALEM — The sole border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened Monday after being largely closed for 20 months, a step forward in Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas.

The reopening of the crossing, in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, will for the first time allow some Palestinians who fled Gaza during the two-year war to return, but only in limited numbers for now. It is also expected to expedite the exit of thousands of sick and wounded people waiting for medical treatment abroad.

The hope is that the reopening of Rafah will be a move toward gradually improving conditions for Palestinians in Gaza.

The first groups of Palestinians started passing through the crossing Monday morning in both directions, according to Israeli officials, who said they would have final numbers of how many crossed by the end of the day.

At a Palestinian Red Crescent Society hospital in Khan Younis, a minibus departed for the Rafah crossing shortly after 1 p.m. with five patients, each accompanied by two caregivers.

Mohammed Mahdi, 25, was escorting his father, Akram Mahdi, 61, a mechanical engineer. The elder Mahdi was wounded in April 2024 in an Israeli airstrike near their home, in a refugee camp in central Gaza, according to his son. Shrapnel tore into his face, blinding him in his right eye and damaging his left one. Doctors in Gaza could do little more than stabilize him, his son said.

“Finally, we can get advanced treatment abroad,” Mohammed Mahdi said before boarding the minibus.

It was unclear by midday how many Palestinians had actually crossed the border in either direction. No returnees appeared to have arrived in Gaza as of early afternoon.

Israel and Egypt disagreed for months over the terms of the reopening, which is part of President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the Israel-Hamas war. A shaky ceasefire took effect in October, but Israel kept the crossing closed as leverage until the last of the hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, were returned to Israel, alive or dead.

A week ago, the Israeli military said it had retrieved the remains of the last remaining captive, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, a police officer who was shot during the Oct. 7 attack, which set off the war.

Underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire, the Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes Saturday in Gaza that killed at least 26 people, including several children, according to local health officials.

Israeli Military Targets Militants, Weapon Facilities

The Israeli military said it had targeted militants and weapons facilities in response to what it called a violation of the ceasefire by Hamas fighters in the Rafah area the day before.

Before Israel seized the Rafah crossing in May 2024, it was a lifeline and a pressure valve for Gaza’s roughly 2 million residents. Israel and Egypt have tightly controlled the territory’s land borders for years, and Israel has long maintained a naval blockade on the enclave, citing a need to stop weapons smuggling. The passage opened briefly during a temporary ceasefire last winter, but only to allow some Palestinians to leave Gaza to obtain medical treatment abroad.

Now that it has been opened again, the crossing will be strictly supervised and operated in a limited capacity, with dozens of people allowed at first to enter or exit each day, according to officials.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that Israel would be in charge of overall security, although Israeli forces would not be present at the crossing. He suggested that about 50 people might be let in daily, and that more would be allowed to leave.

“We are not going to prevent anyone from leaving,” he said.

At least initially, truckloads of goods will not be allowed in via the Rafah crossing.

A daily list of people planning to enter or leave Gaza will be submitted by Egypt to Israeli authorities for vetting, according to officials familiar with the details of the arrangements.

They said a civilian security team from the European Union would monitor the crossing with the help of employees of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. That is a system similar to the one used in the past.

Because the Gaza side of the crossing is in the half of the enclave that Israel now controls, travel to and from the border on the Gaza side will be closely coordinated with Israeli authorities. There will be an additional screening and identification process for people entering, they said, to take place in a designated corridor operated by Israeli security personnel in the area under Israeli military control.

For those wanting to leave Gaza, priority will be given to the sick and the wounded who have been approved for treatment abroad, said a member of the European border monitoring mission, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate talks about the reopening.

Roughly 18,500 people, including 4,000 children, are on the list of patients to be evacuated, according to the United Nations. Patients are usually accompanied by at least one relative or caregiver.

Other Palestinians are in Egypt, waiting to return.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Isabel Kershner and Bilal Shbair/Saher Alghorra
c. 2026 The New York Times Company