Over the past few months, Israel has made the reopening of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt, conditional on the return of the remains of its last captive in the Strip.
In May 2024, the Israeli occupation army seized control of the Rafah crossing during a ground operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, leading to its closure and the destruction of its buildings ever since.
Since the start of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement on October 10, 2025, Palestinian factions have handed over 20 living Israeli prisoners, in addition to the remains of 27 others, while Ghweili is still missing, and Hamas continues to search for his remains.
The second phase of the agreement stipulates the disarmament of Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions, the implementation of a further withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip, and the start of reconstruction efforts, which the United Nations estimates will cost about $70 billion.
The agreement ended a war that began on October 8, 2023, and lasted two years, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 71,000 Palestinians and the injury of more than 171,000, in addition to widespread destruction affecting about 90 percent of the civilian infrastructure in the sector.
Netanyahu's office said Sunday evening that Israel had agreed, as part of US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan, to open the Rafah crossing on a limited basis for the movement of people only, with a full Israeli oversight mechanism, without providing further details.
He added that opening the crossing was conditional on the return of all prisoners, and that Hamas would make every effort to find them, in addition to returning the bodies of all the prisoners who were killed.
The statement explained that the occupation army is carrying out a focused operation during these hours aimed at exhausting all available intelligence information within the efforts to find the slain soldier Ran Gweli.
Netanyahu’s office indicated that “with the completion of this process, and in accordance with the understandings with the United States, the Rafah crossing will be opened,” without disclosing further details.
Later, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that Israel is currently searching for Gweili’s remains at one of the sites, based on information it provided to mediators.
The statement from Netanyahu's office came after a meeting of the Security Cabinet, held Sunday evening, which discussed a number of issues, including the opening of the Rafah crossing.
On Saturday, Netanyahu discussed the Rafah crossing with US envoys Steve Wittkov and Jared Kushner, amid intense political activity regarding the management of the next phase. The official Israeli Broadcasting Corporation estimated that this meeting would lead to the opening of the Rafah crossing within the next few days.
On January 4, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Palestinian Authority would take over the management of the Palestinian side of the crossing with the help of a European Union force.
Ali Shaath, head of the Palestinian Authority's Gaza administration committee, said on Thursday that the Rafah crossing would open next week, without specifying the mechanism that would be adopted.
