Rafah reopens — a narrow corridor between aid and grief
The sun dropped low over Rafah and the convoy began to move. For weeks, the southern crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been a word on the lips of diplomats and aid workers — a lifeline and a bargaining chip. Now, after a grim exchange in which the bodies of four Israelis were returned, Israeli authorities cleared the way for trucks to enter once more.
“We will open Rafah,” one Israeli official told reporters, in a terse announcement that echoed along dusty roads and into the living rooms of anxious families. “Humanitarian assistance must reach those who need it.” The figure being discussed was stark: some 600 aid trucks, assembled under the coordination of the UN, approved international organisations, private sector donors and states, were expected to roll into Gaza.
A somber exchange: return of the dead, opening of a crossing
The exchange that precipitated the reopening was not a celebratory one. In the past 48 hours, after intense negotiations mediated by intermediaries, four bodies were transferred from Gaza to Israeli custody. Three of them were later identified by their families — Ouriel Baruch, a 35-year-old who vanished at the Nova festival last October; Tamir Nimrodi, an 18-year-old soldier taken from a border base; and Eitan Levy, a 53-year-old taxi driver found after dropping off a friend at Kibbutz Beeri.
“We prayed every night,” said a woman who identified herself as Baruch’s cousin, her voice tight with grief. “We imagined him coming home. This is not closure. It is a small mercy amid unbearable loss.”
Across town, a pale convoy of vehicles carrying the remains arrived at the National Centre for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv. Forensic teams moved methodically, the choreography of grief indistinguishable from the routine of laboratory work — names checked, DNA samples compared, families notified.
The fragile mechanics of a ceasefire
The latest returns were part of a broader, brittle deal negotiated in recent days: a temporary truce that envisaged the exchange of living hostages, the release of prisoners, and the transfer of remains — Israeli for Palestinian, body for body. Under the arrangement, Israel agreed to hand over the bodies of Palestinian detainees at a ratio reportedly of 15 for every deceased Israeli returned. The aim was to create reciprocation at the human level while larger political disputes remained unresolved.
But trust is a fragile thing in wartime. In the run-up to the transfer, Israeli authorities had announced a halving of humanitarian truck entries — a punitive measure they said was tied to perceived violations by Hamas of the surrender terms. Hours later, when the four bodies were delivered, the restriction was lifted and the engines of relief began to turn.
Who is being helped?
- 600 trucks of aid are slated to enter Gaza, coordinated by the UN and other international bodies
- 45 Palestinian bodies held by Israel were transferred to the Nasser Medical Centre in Gaza
- At least 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health authorities; hundreds of thousands face severe food shortages
On the streets of Gaza: rubble, resilience, and the return of fighters
Drive through Gaza City and the landscape reads like a map of loss: flattened apartment blocks, schoolyards that have become cemeteries of toys. Bulldozers from Gaza’s municipality clear rubble beside the shattered facades of cafés and mosques where the call to prayer still rises, unnervingly ordinary in a place so unsettled.
“You come to the market and you know what used to be here,” said Rania, a shopkeeper who has spent the last weeks salvaging tins of food and mending clothes for neighbours. “The tea shop that my father ran is only a wall now. But people still gather. We still talk about the children.”
Since partial troop withdrawals, Hamas fighters have reappeared on Gaza’s streets. Locals report checkpoints and patrols, the silhouette of armed men threaded through routes intended for aid deliveries. Palestinian security officials say clashes between rival factions have left dozens dead in recent days — a chilling reminder that a ceasefire does not erase deeper fractures.
Names matter: stories behind the statistics
Numbers can feel abstract: 600 trucks, 67,000 dead, nearly 2,000 prisoners freed in other parts of the agreement, 251 hostages taken on October 7th. But names and faces restore the human weight behind each digit.
“Eitan was the kind of man who spoke to everyone,” a neighbour said of the taxi driver whose body was returned. “He brought tea for old men by the kibbutz gate. He fell on his way back that morning.”
Families of other returned bodies have framed photographs at home, placing them beside candlesticks and prayer books. In many Jewish homes, the custom of shiva — mourning — has been reactivated, ritual anchoring for communities that have lived under the long shadow of war.
Global echoes and the question of accountability
The cadence of the crisis reaches beyond Gaza and southern Israel. International leaders have weighed in with stark rhetoric. “If they do not disarm, we will disarm them,” U.S. President Donald Trump said at a press briefing, warning of rapid and potentially violent action. Such statements amplify regional anxieties and underline a larger question: how do nations reconcile the need for security with humanitarian law and the protection of civilians?
Humanitarian agencies warn that even when borders open, aid cannot instantly heal a collapsed infrastructure. The International Committee of the Red Cross has cautioned that searching through flattened buildings for the missing may take weeks, even months. Food scarcity is acute: famine-like conditions are reported for more than half a million people in Gaza, according to aid assessments.
What comes next?
For now, the Rafah crossing is open. Trucks will drive through with blankets, medical supplies, water purification units, and food. Aid workers will move from distribution points to neighbourhoods, trying to prioritize the most vulnerable — infants, the elderly, those with chronic conditions. But there are no guarantees the corridor will remain untroubled.
What responsibility do external powers bear when diplomacy hinges on exchanges of bodies and trucks? How long can a humanitarian pause stand in for a political solution? And above all, how do the living find a path forward when daily life is threaded through with loss?
“We want to go home,” whispered Fatima, a teacher in Khan Younis, as she handed out a small packet of flour to a young mother. “Home is more than a house. It is our dignity.”
Closing thoughts
The reopening of Rafah is, at once, a practical step and a fragile symbol — a corridor of aid stitched into an atmosphere of grievance. It is a reminder that even in the darkest hours, human compassion can still carve a route through politics and gunfire. Yet the exchange of remains that made the opening possible also unavoidably underscores the terrible cost of conflict: the people who will never return to their shops or to their children’s rooms, the towns that must make space for more tombstones.
As the trucks roll in and the forensics teams complete their work, the world watches. The question that follows those solemn deliveries is not merely about whether aid arrives, but about what kind of peace will be built around those lorries once the engines stop.
