Israel and the Re-“manufacturing” of the Rafah Crossing

The suffocating siege, from all sides and crossings, has been and still is a tool of war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, and for many years before that, for seventeen years, as it completely closed the land crossings, especially the Rafah land crossing, which connects the Palestinian borders in the Gaza Strip with the Arab Republic of Egypt. It is the only crossing that connects the Gaza Strip to the world, and arrangements for it were made under the 2005 agreement between the Palestinian Authority, Israel, the European Union, and Egypt, where the European role was an observer in the crossing area, while the role of the occupation, which withdrew its forces and settlers from the Strip in 2005 as part of the disengagement plan adopted by Sharon, was limited to monitoring the operation of the crossing from a distance for security purposes. The crossing has undergone several transformations, the most important of which were the unfortunate events in 2007 that enabled Hamas to control the Strip, so the Palestinian police force that was supervising the passage of citizens withdrew, as did the European observers, and they were replaced by new employees affiliated with the Hamas government that controlled the Strip.
Today, after the two-year war waged by Israel on Gaza and which ended with a ceasefire according to US President Donald Trump's plan, the opening of the Rafah crossing was a clause in the first phase of the agreement, but Israel, which unilaterally interpreted the terms of this agreement in a way that achieves its goals and reduces its obligations, made the return of all its living and dead prisoners a condition for taking a position on opening the Rafah crossing. When the last body of an Israeli soldier, retrieved from the Al-Batsh cemetery in the Shujaiya neighborhood a few days ago, returned, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in the Knesset to say, “Now the second phase begins with the disarmament of Hamas,” ignoring his obligations in many matters stipulated in the first phase, especially the opening of the Rafah crossing in both directions as stipulated in the agreement.
Under American pressure, which was recently represented by the presence of Steve and Dekov, the US President's assistant and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, it seems that the occupation government has agreed to reopen the crossing according to what it deems appropriate for its interests, and according to the plans it sets, as this crossing, from the side controlled by Israel, as it still occupies and completely controls the city of Rafah, will place a direct governing security checkpoint in front of the Gazans before reaching the crossing, meaning that anyone who wants to leave the Strip, whether sick, a student, or an ordinary citizen, must pass through the Israeli security check, and based on that, he is allowed, returned, or arrested, as are those arriving. Moreover, as Israeli newspapers and media agencies report, the Israelis will control the number of departures in advance, provided that the number of departures does not exceed two hundred per day.
The matter was not limited to those departing, whom the Israelis hope and work to ensure that the exit indicator is much greater than the entry and return indicator, in implementation of the displacement policy that they have not dropped from their agenda. Israel demands that both Egypt and the European observers receive lists of those departing and entering twenty-four hours before their movement in both directions, in addition to what one of the leaders of the groups cooperating with Israel in the Gaza Strip, “Ghassan Al-Dahini,” stated, that his groups will inspect those departing or arriving in Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
The opening of the Rafah crossing, being an important item of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip according to the Trump plan, is intended, as was the case with the other Israeli clauses and obligations, to be in a new form and arrangements, far from the spirit of the original agreement that established its mechanism of action in 2005, and that it will be added to Israel's security and political vision with the stated and unstated goals, and linked to statements that Israel has always made through its political and military leaders, which is adherence to the Salah al-Din “Philadelphia” axis and the Rafah crossing, within the trend of not completely withdrawing from the Strip, and forming new borders connecting the Strip to Israel, and a permanent Israeli military presence in an area of no less than twenty percent of the Strip's area, to be a security depth for the Gaza envelope settlements, no matter what stages of implementing the agreement points are reached, and what Israel is doing and practicing on the ground is nothing but the application of this vision, and the re-manufacturing of the Rafah crossing by Israeli hands.