Hamas urges reopening of Rafah crossing as UN warns Gaza aid still blocked
UN says Israel is obstructing humanitarian deliveries despite a weeklong ceasefire, while far-right activists block trucks and mediators draft a plan for Gaza’s future
GAZA, Palestine (MNTV) – Palestinian resistance group Hamas has urged mediators and the international community to pressure Israel to reopen the Rafah crossing with Egypt, saying the move is required under the ceasefire agreement brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The United Nations says Israel continues to obstruct humanitarian deliveries to Gaza one week into the truce, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians without food, water, or medicine.
Far-right Israeli activists from the group Tsav 9 have been blocking aid trucks at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing. The group said on X that its members are “currently obstructing the passage of aid trucks” at several points along the route to the crossing controlled by Israel.
France, Britain, and the United States are reportedly finalizing a UN Security Council resolution that could pave the way for an international force to monitor Gaza’s ceasefire and reconstruction efforts.
Hamas reaffirmed its commitment to the ceasefire, saying it is working to return the remaining bodies of Israeli prisoners but that the process will take time.
The group said many of the bodies remain buried in tunnels destroyed by Israeli airstrikes or under the rubble of demolished buildings.
The first phase of the ceasefire, which began Oct. 10, saw Hamas release 20 Israeli prisoners alive and hand over 10 bodies in exchange for 1,968 Palestinian prisoners — 250 of them serving life sentences and 1,718 detained after Oct. 8, 2023. Over 10,000 Palestinians remain imprisoned in Israel.
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday that inaccurate intelligence about prisoner locations has led to the deaths of some Israeli prisoners during Israel’s own airstrikes in Gaza.
Citing an Israeli source, the paper said the army carried out several covert operations over the past two years to retrieve prisoners. In one such operation, the elite Sayeret Matkal unit raided a house in Khan Younis, where Hamas fighters quickly responded, wounding several Israeli soldiers and killing one captive whose body Hamas later recovered.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club said Israel is holding the bodies of 86 Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons, including 75 who died following the recent war on Gaza.
Meanwhile, the UN’s World Food Program said it is delivering about 560 tons of food daily since the ceasefire took effect but warned supplies remain far below Gaza’s needs. “The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity,” WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa said, adding that months of siege and displacement have pushed Gaza’s population to the brink of famine.
Civil defense teams continue searching through rubble to recover bodies killed in the Israeli bombardment. Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israel’s war on the enclave has killed at least 67,967 people and wounded more than 170,000 since October 2023.
Trump, who mediated the truce, said he expects an expansion of the Abraham Accords normalizing ties between Israel and more Muslim-majority nations once the ceasefire stabilizes, though tensions in Gaza remain high.
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