Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Gaza's Rafah crossing will remain closed until further notice, shortly after the Palestinian Embassy in Egypt announced that it would reopen on Monday.
"The crossing's opening will be considered based on the manner in which Hamas fulfills its part in returning the deceased hostages and implementing the agreed-upon framework," Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Saturday.
The Rafah crossing is the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.
A fully reopened crossing would make it easier for Gazans to seek medical treatment, travel internationally or visit family in Egypt, home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Since the US-brokered halt to two years of devastating war, around 560 metric tons of food have entered the Gaza Strip per day on average — still well below the scale of need, according to the UN World Food Program.
The crossing was shut to aid after Israeli forces seized the Gaza side in May 2024, but was briefly reopened in early 2025 during a short-lived ceasefire between the two sides.
After two years of bombardment and blockade, the need for food, medicine, shelter and other aid in Gaza is extreme. In March, Israel launched an 11-week blockade of all aid into Gaza, causing food stockpiles to dwindle and prices to shoot up.
In August, a global hunger monitor declared famine was unfolding in Gaza City in the enclave's north. Israel dismissed the findings as false and biased.
Gaza's health authorities say that more than 400 people have died from malnutrition-related causes. Israel says the figures are exaggerated and many deaths were attributable to other causes.
Israel announced in late July it was expanding measures to let more aid into Gaza. But Gaza's side of the Rafah crossing remained closed, meaning shipments were routed through the Israeli crossing of Kerem Shalom, about 3 km (2 miles) to the south.
Aid workers and truck drivers complained that they faced a host of obstacles at Kerem Shalom, ranging from rejections for minor packing and paperwork issues to short hours at the Israeli crossing, meaning they could only bring in a fraction of the aid that was needed.
Israel denies that it has limited aid into the enclave.
