Rafah Crossing Reopens With Tight Limits on Movement (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Now another important story. Palestinians have started to enter the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, which has largely been kept closed for the past two years after Israeli forces captured the Gazan side. Opening it is part of the second stage of President Trump's peace plan for Gaza, but Israel says that only Palestinians who left Gaza during the war will be allowed back in. We're monitoring live images from the Israel-Gaza border. Israeli reports say that each day, only 50 patients who can travel, two relatives will be allowed to exit and 50 people who left Gaza during the war can return. The crossing is to be run by the European Union supervisors and local Palestinian staff. Israel will be able to carry out remote security checks. We're continuing to monitor the scene live in Gaza City itself. Thousands of sick and wounded Palestinians currently waiting to leave Gaza for treatment. Let's cross over to Jerusalem. Our Middle East correspondent, my colleague Yolande Nell, joins us. Yolande, important just to stress the numbers when it comes to this reopening of the crossing.

[00:01:18] Speaker 2: Definitely and that's why you know there's been such kind of hope and relief expressed by Palestinians who see this Rafah border crossing, the only crossing from the Gaza Strip that leads out of away from Israel goes into Egypt. They see it as their gateway to the world, a lifeline for people. And you've got about 20,000 Palestinians who are sick and wounded who are waiting to leave for urgent medical treatment. That's according to local doctors and the World Health Organization. And at the same time, about 30,000 Palestinians who we're told have registered with the Palestinian embassy in Cairo to go back into the Gaza Strip. These are people who left during the course of the war, some of them for medical treatment. They want to go back for the purposes of family reunification. But just look, dozens of people, according to reports, are all that are going to be allowed through each day. And so, you know, according to the figures that are out there, it will take until late next year for all the people who want to go back to Gaza to be able to do so. And that's been a cause of frustration for many Palestinians, along with the fact that at the moment, the Rafah crossing is not being opened for humanitarian aid to go directly into Gaza. Any aid going from Egypt will still have to cross through the Israeli security checks at the Kerem Shalom Israeli border crossing right down in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

[00:02:42] Speaker 1: And Yolande, just in terms of who will be monitoring this border crossing, just talk us through the security aspect of that.

[00:02:53] Speaker 2: So there is a European Union monitors group which is called EU BAM, this mission, that has been reinstated at the border crossing. It was used there in the past as a mechanism working alongside local Palestinians. The stamps that people get to go in and out will be from the Palestinian Authority, which is, of course, the entity which runs parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel has been so clear that it doesn't want the Palestinian Authority to have a role in the future governance of Gaza. But you will have Israeli security checks that will take place. There's a checkpoint, especially for those going into Gaza, where facial recognition software will be used to check the identities of those going in because everyone will need, in advance, both security clearance from the Egyptians and the Israelis to pass through this crossing.

[00:03:46] Speaker 1: Yolande, as always, thank you so much for talking us through all of the different aspects. Thank you. Yolande, now they're...