A convoy transporting Palestinians heads towards the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after it opens for the first time since the US-Israel war with Iran started, in Khan Yunis on March 19, 2026. Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt reopened on March 19 for a limited number of people, Egyptian state media and a Red Crescent official said, for the first time since Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP via Getty Images)
Akiva Van Koningsveld
The Rafah Crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt has been reopened in both directions, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit said on Thursday.
The decision to reopen the crossing, which had been closed since the start of “Operation Roaring Lion” against Iran on Feb. 28, was made in coordination with Egypt, a COGAT spokesperson told JNS.
The move came in the wake of pressure from the Trump administration, according to Israel’s Ynet news outlet.
Under the U.S.-brokered Oct. 10, 2025, ceasefire deal with the Hamas terrorist group, Jerusalem agreed to reopen Rafah for civilian crossings “in both directions.”
COGAT in a social media post on Wednesday stressed that “security restrictions imposed at the crossings were implemented due to the ongoing missile threat, stemming from a real concern for the safety of all individuals present at the crossings.”
“At the same time, and out of a commitment to allow and facilitate the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, tailored operational mechanisms were formulated to enable the crossings to function. Accordingly, hundreds of trucks enter the Gaza Strip every day,” it added.
The current Gaza truce went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, ending the two-year war that started when Hamas, other Palestinian terror groups and Gazan “civilians” invaded the western Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, and slaughtered approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 others.