Egypt will host Israeli and American officials on Sunday to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing, a vital conduit for aid into the Gaza Strip, Egyptian state-linked media said.
Al-Qahera News, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, quoted on Saturday an unidentified senior official as saying Cairo was demanding “a total Israeli withdrawal” from the terminal on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
“An Egyptian-American-Israeli meeting is scheduled for [Sunday] in Cairo to discuss the reopening of the Rafah crossing,” the official said.
The crossing has been closed since Israeli forces seized its Gazan side from Hamas in early May, with Egypt refusing to allow goods through while Israel controls the terminal.
Since then, Egypt and Israel have blamed each other for the blocking of aid deliveries through Rafah. The Egyptian authorities have refused to coordinate with the Israelis, preferring to work with international or Palestinian bodies.
After talks with United States President Joe Biden last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi agreed to temporarily divert United Nations aid to the Kerem Shalom Crossing, near Rafah but on Gaza’s border with Israel.
Biden revealed on Friday a multi-phase plan for a hostage and ceasefire in the Gaza Strip proposed by Israel, saying it was “time for this war to end.”
The official quoted by Al-Qahera said that Egypt was undertaking “intensive efforts” to “resume negotiations” for a truce “in light of the recent American proposition.”
As part of its operation in Rafah, the Israel Defense Forces has also made incursions into the city itself and captured the Philadelphi corridor, which runs along the Egypt-Gaza border.
On Saturday, the military said troops of the Nahal Brigade operating in Rafah in recent days located rocket launchers and a weapons depot, publishing images of the findings.
The troops also used a small drone to scan a suspicious building, where several barrels packed with explosives were located, the IDF added.
While the international community has been largely opposed to an Israeli operation in Rafah because of the over one million civilians who fled there during the war, Israel says the maneuver is necessary, as the city is believed to be the last remaining stronghold of the terror group Hamas. Nevertheless, combat between the IDF and Gazan gunmen has continued throughout the Strip.
Since the IDF began operating in Rafah, the US, Israel’s most important ally, has been largely tolerant of the operation despite withholding the transfer of bombs and threatening to hold up further weapons shipments if the IDF operates in densely populated areas of the Gazan city.
War broke out on October 7 when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 252.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though only some 24,000 fatalities have been identified at hospitals. The toll, which cannot be verified, includes some 15,000 terror operatives Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
294 soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border. A civilian Defense Ministry contractor has also been killed in the Strip.