TNA Staff
The New Arab / January 30, 2026
Israeli attacks have killed at least five Palestinians in Gaza since overnight, as Israel announced it will reopen the Rafah crossing over the weekend.
Israeli attacks have killed at least five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since Thursday night, as Tel Aviv said the vital Rafah border crossing will reopen on Sunday after a two-year closure.
A medical source told Anadolu Agency that Yasser Mohammad Abu Shahada, 21, and Walid Hassan Darwish, 20, were killed at dawn on Friday in an Israeli strike east of the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. Their bodies were transferred to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
Eyewitnesses said an Israeli drone targeted a civilian gathering in Al-Maghazi at dawn.
In the south of the Strip, Israeli military vehicles and attack helicopters reportedly opened heavy and indiscriminate fire east of Khan Younis in areas still under Israeli control. Residents also reported several air strikes in areas under Israeli control in the city of Rafah.
Israeli forces currently occupy around 52 percent of Gaza but are required to gradually withdraw under a US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect in October last year. Despite the truce, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks.
On Friday morning, the Israeli military said it had launched overnight strikes targeting what it described as eight militants who emerged from underground in Rafah, killing three of them.
The latest attacks come as the Rafah crossing with Egypt remains shut, with Israel announcing on Friday that it will reopen the vital crossing in both directions over the weekend, allowing Palestinians to enter and leave the territory after nearly two years of closure.
The Israeli military has been in full control of the Rafah crossing since May 2024.
Israel had resisted reopening the border point – Gaza’s main gateway to the world – but the recovery of the remains of the last captive in Gaza on Monday cleared the way to move forward.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement on Friday that “limited movement of people only” would be allowed.
Both Israel and Egypt will vet individuals for exit and entry through the crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents. Palestinians who left Gaza during the war will reportedly be allowed to return only after obtaining Israeli security clearance.
According to local sources, Israel is pushing to allow 150 people to leave Gaza for every 50 permitted to re-enter, while Egypt is insisting that the same number of people allowed out must be allowed to return to the enclave.
Egypt and other Arab states have warned Israel about using the re-opening of Rafah to further its plans to permanently displace Gaza’s population. Several far-right Israeli officials have called for the full annexation of the coastal enclave.
Under the ceasefire agreement, Gaza was supposed to be flooded with humanitarian relief, which Israeli authorities have massively restricted.
Among the nearly 72,000 Palestinians killed since the start of the war, hundreds have been killed seeking aid at distribution sites or have starved to death. Others have died due to a shortage of medical essentials and from hypothermia.
‘Hamas will disarm’
The reopening of Rafah is expected to allow the entry of a 15-member technocratic administrative committee created as part of the ceasefire to oversee the running of Gaza. That committee will be part of the “Board of Peace” led by US President Donald Trump himself.
Their announcements earlier this month came as part of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement – despite ongoing Israeli strikes.
The second stage would also include the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas and other groups.
On Thursday, Trump claimed that “it looks like” Hamas was “going to disarm,” despite a senior Hamas official insisting otherwise hours earlier.
Trump did not provide proof for his claim, which he made during a cabinet meeting in Washington, according to Israeli media.
Israel and the US have repeatedly warned Hamas that it has no choice but to disarm, threatening to take military action if it refuses to. The reconstruction of Gaza has been linked to the group surrendering its weapons.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem had told a local Palestinian website on Thursday that the group had not yet received a final proposal from mediators regarding its disarmament.
Hamas politburo member Moussa Abu Marzouk told the Al-Jazeera network that negotiations were not held with the US or mediators about the disarmament of the group.
Abu Marzouk stressed that the proposal of destroying or dismantling the group’s arms “was never even presented to Hamas in the first place”.
