Israel says Rafah Crossing to reopen when IDF finishes search for last hostage body

No timeline given by Netanyahu’s office on search for Ran Gvili, but US official says operation expected to last several days, allowing crossing to open by end of week

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Sunday evening that Israel will reopen the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt after it completes a military operation that aims to recover the body of the last deceased hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili.

The announcement followed a security cabinet meeting on the issue, and with Israel facing significant international pressure to reopen the Rafah Crossing.

While the statement from Netanyahu’s office did not give a specific timeline for the IDF operation seeking to recover Gvili’s body, a US official told The Times of Israel that Washington expects the search to last several days, allowing for the reopening of Rafah by the end of this week.

The IDF confirmed on Sunday evening that it is searching for Gvili’s body in a cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip. The IDF said that while it is credible that Gvili’s remains are located at the cemetery, there are other potential intelligence leads on where his body could be.

The chief commissioner of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the Gaza envoy for the NCAG-overseeing Board of Peace already announced on Thursday that Rafah would reopen this week for the first time in nearly a year.

While it was also used for goods throughout the war, the Rafah Crossing’s intended use is for pedestrians.

Netanyahu’s office said in its statement Sunday that the opening of the only crossing between Egypt and Gaza was conditioned “on the return of all living hostages and on Hamas making a 100% effort to locate and return all slain hostages.”

October 9’s Israel-Hamas deal on the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s broader Gaza peace plan provided for the return of all hostages within 72 hours, but left open the possibility that the recovery of bodies from underneath Gaza’s rubble might take longer, and did not explicitly condition Rafah’s reopening on the return of all captives.

Israel has resisted moving forward with phase two of Trump’s peace plan — which provides for Hamas to disarm, and includes reopening the Rafah Crossing — before Gvili’s body has been returned. Hamas has maintained that it does not know the exact location of his remains and has made attempts to search for them.

The statement from Netanyahu’s office said that the IDF is conducting “a focused operation to fully utilize all intelligence obtained in the effort to locate and return” Gvili.

When that operation is complete, “and in accordance with what was agreed on with the United States,” Israel will reopen the crossing, it said.

The statement stressed that Israel is committed to Gvili’s return and will do everything it can to bring his body back.

The search operation began over the weekend, based on intelligence information that the body was buried at a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City, near the neighborhoods of Shejaiya, Daraj, and Tuffah.

Gvili, a 24-year-old policeman, was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel during the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. He rushed to the fight even as he was awaiting surgery for a shoulder injury.

On Friday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir stopped at the weekly rally held by Gvili’s family in Tel Aviv and reportedly told his parents that there was “room for optimism” for their son’s return.

‘A big mistake and a very bad decision’

At a security cabinet meeting Sunday night, far-right ministers reportedly slammed the decision to eventually reopen the crossing.

“We did great things like kill tens of thousands of terrorists, but we still haven’t completely eliminated Hamas,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said, according to quotes carried by the Walla news site.

“We have to dismantle and disarm it. Enough with [Jared] Kushner and [Steve] Witkoff’s naivety — if Rafah Crossing opens, it will be a big mistake and a very bad message,” he reportedly said.

The US envoys, who met on Saturday with Netanyahu and other officials during their trip to Israel, have been pressing Jerusalem to move forward with the next steps of Trump’s Gaza plan.

Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock reportedly charged that Israel was handing over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, which the government has accused of backing terrorism and has insisted cannot have a role in governing the enclave.

“This cabinet will eventually make a decision to send our soldiers to fight Hamas because no one else will do it, and then what will we tell them?” she said, according to Walla.