Top Israeli officials defied a demand from the White House to reopen Gaza’s only border crossing with Egypt.
On Sunday, the Israeli Security Cabinet voted against reopening the Rafah Border Crossing. Under the peace agreement brokered by President Donald Trump, Tel Aviv agreed to reopen the crossing.
While Washington announced last week that the peace agreement had advanced into phase two, that designation was rejected by Hamas and Israel. Hamas said the deal cannot move forward until the Rafah crossing is reopened and Israel allows temporary housing into Gaza.
However, Tel Aviv said it will not allow aid to enter Gaza via Egypt until Hamas returns the body of the last Israeli captive in the Strip. So far, Hamas released the 20 living captives and returned the remains of 27 of the 28 deceased hostages.
On Wednesday, a senior official said Washington had a “very good line of communication” regarding recovering the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili. There has been some dispute between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad over who was holding the body of the final captive.
Trump threatened Hamas that he would do things the “hard way” if Gvili’s remains were not immediately returned. “Hamas must IMMEDIATELY honor its commitments, including the return of the final body to Israel, and proceed without delay to full Demilitarization,” the President wrote on Truth Social. “As I have said before, they can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
During the Israeli Security Cabinet meeting, Tel Aviv also rejected Qatar and Turkey’s participation in a board that will assist in governing Gaza post-war. According to the senior official, the “inclusion of Turkey and Qatar was on Netanyahu’s head. This is [Jared] Kushner’s and [Steve] Witkoff’s revenge on him, because of his insistence not to open the crossing before the return of hostage Ran Gvili.”
