A brittle gate and a sudden parting: Gaza at another hinge point
The air at Rafah this week tasted of dust and diesel, with a faint tang of fear. For the millions who live in Gaza—2.2 million people by most counts—the promised reopening of this narrow, battered crossing is more than logistics; it is a momentary inhalation between suffocating intervals of siege and shelling.
Israel announced that Rafah, the Gaza crossing onto Egypt that has been largely closed since May 2024, would open on a trial basis for limited people movement, while at the same time ordering one of the most prominent humanitarian organizations to pack up and go. In a single stroke, the corridor for human movement has been nudged open—and a large chunk of neutral medical help has been told to leave.
Doctors Without Borders: asked to leave—why it matters
The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) failed to hand over lists of its Palestinian employees, a requirement it imposes on NGOs operating in the territory. The ministry said MSF will cease operations and must exit Gaza by 28 February.
“We require transparency on local staff, just as we do for all organisations operating in the area,” a ministry spokesperson told reporters. “This is a security and accountability measure.”
For MSF and many international aid organizations, handing over the names of local hires is not a trivial administrative step. “Giving a confidential roster to an occupying power can put staff at risk,” a senior MSF official in Geneva said in a phone interview. “Our priority is the safety of the people we hire—drivers, interpreters, nurses—who are already living every day under threat.”
Local hires are the backbone of aid work in Gaza. They are the ones who navigate crumbled streets, re-purpose schoolrooms into clinics, and translate trauma into triage. The prospect of their lists being shared with a side in the conflict raises immediate ethical and safety questions—a tension that has repeatedly surfaced in other war zones.
What the order means on the ground
For patients in need of complex care—dialysis, chemotherapy, advanced trauma surgery—the loss of MSF’s clinics could be decisive. “Every day that passes drains my life and worsens my condition,” said a man identified as Mohammed, who suffers from kidney disease and has been waiting, hope worn thin, for passage to treatment outside Gaza. “I’m waiting every moment for the opening of the Rafah land crossing.”
MSF runs mobile clinics and surgical teams that have filled gaps where hospitals were flattened or overwhelmed. If those teams are gone, local doctors will be left to treat severe wounds with fewer resources, fewer referral pathways and fewer possibilities to move patients out for specialized care.
A guarded reopening, loaded with uncertainty
The reopening is intended to be narrow in scope: movement of people only, subject to prior security clearance by Israel and in coordination with Egypt and under the eye of the European Union mission. COGAT, the Israeli civil affairs body that administers crossings into the occupied Palestinian territories, said the opening is being supervised by the EU and coordinated with Egyptian authorities.
But key questions remain unanswered: How many will be permitted through each day? Who can come back into Gaza—and who can leave? Sources at the border said the first day would be spent on preparations, with wounded people the initial priority.
“Egypt will admit Palestinians whom Israel authorises to leave,” a border source said. That contingent and conditional phrasing leaves many families in limbo—parents waiting to take a child abroad for a lifesaving operation, students hoping to return to university, elderly relatives waiting to see their parents.
The political backdrop: hostages, remains, and new administrators
The partial opening follows the recovery and repatriation of the remains of Ran Gvili, identified in official statements as the last Israeli hostage in Gaza. His burial in Israel earlier this week was cited by both Israel and Hamas as a trigger for the current movement.
At the same time, the crossing’s reopening is tied to a fragile governance experiment. A 15-member technocratic body called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) is slated to enter the territory to oversee daily affairs. The committee, led by former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath according to official announcements, is to operate under a so-called “Board of Peace” now chaired by US President Donald Trump.
“There’s an attempt to stitch governance into a war zone,” said Dr. Lina Haddad, a political scientist who studies transitions in conflict settings. “But legitimacy matters. If the people inside Gaza see administrators chosen without broad local buy-in—or administered under the watch of foreign powers—the experiment may be brittle from the start.”
Violence fragments progress
Even as Rafah prepares to move people, violence continued. Gaza civil defence reported dozens killed in air strikes the day before the reopening announcement; Israeli military statements described the strikes as a response to alleged ceasefire violations from fighters in Rafah. Each flare-up chips away at the fragile trust that allows crossings, aid convoys and governance teams to operate.
“How do you coordinate routes when the map keeps changing?” asked Yara, a teacher in Gaza City whose school is now an emergency shelter. “Every time we think we know where safety is, the line moves.”
Local color: life in the waiting room
Scenes around Rafah are intimate and ordinary in spite of the extraordinary: children playing with bottle caps on a blanket of rubble; women steeping tea over small fires; old men bargaining over phone credit to call relatives whose numbers change daily. An elderly grandmother kneads flatbread in a corner, hands steady from decades of practice, while her grandson scrolls through a smudged smartphone for the latest border notices.
“You learn to laugh in small portions,” said Ahmed, a driver who has ferried patients to clinics for years. “We tell jokes about nothing, so the nothing feels lighter.”
Questions to hold as the week unfolds
As readers, we might ask: Whose safety counts most when the rules of war collide with the ethics of aid? How will communities be protected if humanitarian agencies are forced to leave on the grounds of administrative non-compliance? And what precedent does it set when the route for people’s survival is made conditional on political or security calculations?
The story of Rafah is not just a headline; it is a router of lives—sending some out, holding others in, and letting many more balance on a hopeful, fearful hinge. The coming days will show whether the crossing functions as a narrow band-aid or a real, repeatable lifeline—and whether the absence of MSF will be a temporary gap or a wound with long echoes.
What to watch
- Whether MSF appeals the order or negotiates terms for local staff protections.
- Daily numbers: how many people pass through Rafah and in which directions.
- Progress of the NCAG and whether it is accepted by Gazans on the ground.
- Any further escalations that might shutter the crossing once again.
In the rubble, people continue to plan small futures: a dialysis appointment, a sister’s wedding, a classroom that might reopen. For now, Rafah is a narrow key opening a very heavy lock. Whether it becomes a door back to normal life—or a brief, brittle pause—depends on decisions taken in halls of power and on the courage of ordinary people who keep living inside the line.
