Israel Shuts Down Rafah Crossing, Major Ceasefire Violation

That was fast: true to form and my predictions here, Israel closed the Rafah crossing yesterday. All passage of  humanitarian aid or individuals into or outside Gaza was prohibited:

The Rafah crossing will not be opened today for the exit and entry of Gazans. Yesterday, Israel announced sanctions against Hamas in light of the violation of the agreement.  But today a security source also claimed that there are also logistical difficulties. ‘There was and is preparation for the opening of the Rafah crossing,’ explained the source.

It will not be opened today nor is it known when it will be opened.

[Israel] awaits an announcement from Hamas and hopes that the process will not go wrong. In the meantime, the source said, 600 aid trucks will enter the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing in accordance with the agreement, after yesterday there was an intention to reduce the number to 300.

No aid truck–not 600, not 300–entered Gaza today from Rafah, Kerem Shalom or anywhere else.  So much for anonymous Israeli “sources” credited above. This choking off of aid is a direct violation of Trump’s “peace plan,” which calls for opening all crossings for the free flow of such aid into Gaza.

Israel justified its resumption of the starvation protocol by claiming that Hamas has violated the ceasefire: after freeing all the living hostages, it had not produced any bodies of the dead. It’s not clear if there was a delay nor whether this was a ceasefire violation at all and, if so, what caused it.

Within hours, Hamas released four bodies to the Red Cross, which transferred them to Israel.  A total of seven bodies have now been transferred to Israel. As a result, the army announced that Rafah would reopen today. Needless to say, it didn’t.

Yesterday‘s statement statement from Israel was that Rafah will open, but only for individuals crossing into and out of Gaza.  No humanitarian aid will enter via Rafah. Today, Israel announced that Rafah would be fully closed until further notice:

Israel’s military aid agency COGAT told Reuters on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing for the movement of people, but the date for the opening will be announced at a later stage.

The IDF announced a new restriction on the flow of aid:

“Humanitarian aid will not pass through the Rafah crossing. This was never agreed upon at any stage,” COGAT added…

None of the ceasefire agreements (August 2024, January 2025, October 2025) specifies that Israel prohibits aid from crossing through Rafah.  Nor do they say that it will only be permitted via Israeli crossing points, which is what Israel has unilaterally decided.  But if Israel claims Rafah was never intended as an aid crossing, why is there a 400-truck convoy waiting on the Egyptian side for entry?

The latest today is that Israel offers a claim that the crossing will open Sunday. Good luck with that.  All this is an explicit violation of the Trump plan which calls for all crossing to be reopened and for the free flow of aid into the enclave.

The IDF now claims that humanitarian aid has never entered via Rafah and will not now:

“It should be emphasised that humanitarian aid will not pass through the Rafah crossing. This was never agreed upon at any stage,” COGAT added

Hamas cannot produce hostages’ bodies

Hamas has warned that the bodies they’ve produced are the only ones to which they have physical access:

Hamas said these were “the bodies we were able to reach,” adding that recovering the remaining bodies “requires significant effort and special equipment.”

…Senior U.S. advisers emphasized that retrieval is extremely challenging due to widespread destruction and unexploded ordnance.

Hamas faces a Catch 22: it needs excavators to plow through the rubble and locate bodies.  But Israel refuses to permit such equipment, claiming it could be used for military purposes.  As a result, the Palestinians cannot fulfill the terms of the agreement which, in turn, offers Netanyahu an excuse to resume the war.

Turkey sent an 81-member rescue team with bulldozers, which would permit them to uncover the remains of the hostages.  However, true to form, Israel has refused entry to Gaza.  It states that it will refuse such permission until Hamas produces bodies to which it purportedly has access:

Turkey sent a team of specialists to help retrieve remains buried under the rubble, but the group was still waiting on Friday for Israeli permission to enter the territory.

“It remains unclear when Israel will allow the Turkish team to enter Gaza,” a Turkish official told AFP, noting that the team’s mission included locating Palestinian and hostage remains. A Hamas source told AFP the Turkish delegation was expected to enter by Sunday.

Hamas wants to uncover the remains, needs specialized equipment, and until now is being denied it.  I would say this is insane logic, but I know better given the past two years of Israeli-induced criminal insanity.

This refusal is another example of Netanyahu’s utter disdain for the hostages and their families. Hamas wants to find the Israeli dead and return them; while he makes this virtually impossible.  All in order to pander to his far-right partners who would rather Israeli corpses remain under Gazan rubble, as long as it enables them to achieve the Final Solution of the Palestinian Problem

Netanyahu has threatened a return to genocide if Hamas doesn’t release the remains of the hostages:

“I know exactly how many fallen soldiers Hamas is holding, and if we do not receive them, Israel will know how to act accordingly,” he said.

The defense minister, who is little more than a mouthpiece (Bibi runs the show), threatened a full scale return to war.  Even though he’s a blowhard who few, except global media, take seriously, his saber rattling indicates the hair trigger upon which this deal rests.

Trump has done one better, threatening to “go in and kill Hamas.”  Not exactly in the spirit of his own “peace deal.”

Hostage return protocol under peace plan

Though point 5 of the agreement (see screenshot) calls for Hamas to release all hostages, dead or alive, it cannot retrieve bodies if they lie under the rubble on buildings destroyed by IDF bombing; or in tunnels collapsed by Israel attacks.  The best it can do under these circumstances is begin a process of locating the bodies and excavating rubble to retrieve them. This subheading contradicts the earlier one and addresses the difficulty of transferring the dead hostages:

c. Within the 72 hours, Hamas will release the remains of the deceased hostages in its possession…

e. Establishment of an information-sharing mechanism between the two sides…to exchange information…on any remaining deceased hostages that were not retrieved within the 72 hours…

There is no expectation that Hamas will be able to locate or release all of the bodies of the remaining hostages.  That’s why point c clearly specifies that Hamas will release the bodies of those in its possession within 72 hours.  It cannot release bodies it does not hold. It can only begin a process of locating and then exhuming them from the rubble, which the “End of War” deal language clearly foresees.

The sloppy, contradictory phrasing of number 5 and the subheadings above permit Israel to weasel out of the deal.  Analysts and journalists, including Israelis warned, based on past bad faith behavior, that Netanyahu would exploit weaknesses in the deal to progressively weaken, and eventually destroy it entirely. The halt in aid begins that process. If so, we can expect further Israeli restrictions violating the deal; all couched in claims of Hamas violations.

Media reporting falsely states that “the ceasefire appears to be holding.”  No it is not.  When a party violates a major provision, the ceasefire totters on the brink and certainly is not holding.

Serial Israeli violations threaten “peace plan”:

Israel has violated another aspect of the agreement: there is no provision for sanctions in the event of violation of the agreement by either party.  And there certainly is no provision for either one unilaterally imposing a penalty on the other.  This is a blatant violation.  But again, the absence of any language in this regard is yet another weakness.  It indicates there was no vetting by State Department lawyers and officials, who are experienced in formulating treaties and bilateral agreements to avoid such lapses.

We have not heard a word from Steve Witkoff about the disruption in aid shipments. He only makes statements about the status of the hostage return.  The US’ only concern is satisfying Israeli interests.  It offers nothing on behalf of the critical needs of Gazans for food in light of Israeli starvation. This indicates the weakness of the agreement. The parties who negotiated it and pressured both sides to agree to it, refuses to enforce one of its key provisions.

Further, the agreement offers a process to resolve such disputes: an “information-sharing mechanism,” consisting of the mediators and Red Cross, is designated to receive information from the parties on their progress in implementing their obligations. This is yet another option for resolving issues pertaining to the agreement. But Israel ignores such niceties if it impinges on its interests. It never met an agreement it didn’t violate. Why consult anyone when you can impose the outcome you desire?