The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will stay closed until further notice, Israel has said, after the Palestinian embassy in Cairo said the territory's sole gateway to the outside world would reopen on Monday. The statement by Benjamin Netanyahu's office said reopening Rafah would depend on how Hamas fulfils its ceasefire role of returning the remains of all 28 dead hostages.
The Israeli military said on Friday that the Red Cross had retrieved a coffin of a dead Israeli captive from the Palestinians and was transferring it to Israeli custody. Official identification would first be provided to the family before being made public, the army said. Hamas is required to uphold the agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages, the army added.
The first five days of the ceasefire in the Strip, however, have been marked by a sense of deja vu, especially due to the unbalanced back-and-forth between Israel and Hamas over the return of the remains of the deceased hostages and the retaliation over the pace at which it is being carried out, which Benjamin Netanyahu's government considers insufficient and malicious.