EU-monitored Gaza Pedestrian Crossing to Reopen Next Week, Says Italy

Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
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EU-monitored Gaza Pedestrian Crossing to Reopen Next Week, Says Italy

Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Trucks carrying aid line up near the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

An EU mission at the Rafah border point between Gaza and Egypt will resume following the ceasefire, with the pedestrian crossing due to reopen on October 14, Italy said Friday.

The EUBAM monitoring mission is intended to provide a neutral, third-party presence at the key crossing and involves police from Italy, Spain and France. It was deployed in January but suspended in March, AFP reported.

In a statement, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said he had authorized the resumption of Italian operations within the EU mission for the reopening of the crossing under the same conditions as in January.

It follows the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas under a truce and hostage-release deal proposed by US President Donald Trump.

"On October 14, 2025, in compliance with the Trump agreement, in coordination with the European Union and the parties, the Rafah crossing will be opened alternately in two directions, exiting towards Egypt and entering towards Gaza," Crosetto said.

He said Israel was "working to restore the logistical functionality of the crossing's infrastructure as quickly as possible."

Crosetto also said that "approximately 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid will flow into Gaza from other (non-Rafah) crossings every day".

In January, the EU said the main objective of the mission was to coordinate and facilitate the daily transit of up to 300 wounded and sick people.

Crosetto said Friday: "The passage of personnel will not be limited to serious medical cases, but will be extended to anyone who wishes (subject to the mutual approval of Israel and Egypt)."

The EU set up the civilian mission in 2005 to help monitor the Rafah crossing, but it was suspended two years later after the Palestinian group Hamas took control of Gaza.



Israel Strikes across Southern Lebanon despite Truce

A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER
A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER
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Israel Strikes across Southern Lebanon despite Truce

A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER
A bulldozer clears the rubble of a partially damaged building targeted by an Israeli strike in the Haret Hreik neighborhood, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 07 May 2026. EPA/STRINGER

Israel pummeled southern Lebanon on Thursday, state media and AFP correspondents said, a day after it targeted a Hezbollah commander in its first strike on Beirut's southern suburbs since a truce sought to end weeks of fighting.

The Israeli army said Thursday that the strike on the southern suburbs killed "the Commander of Hezbollah's 'Radwan Force' Unit", an elite unit within the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

A ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel began on April 17, but combat has largely not stopped in southern Lebanon.

Wednesday's strike near the capital, however, came as a shock in Lebanon.

AFP photographs taken in the southern suburbs showed the top floors of a residential building totally destroyed, and rescuers searching through the rubble on Thursday morning.

Hezbollah has not retaliated for the attack.

Lebanese state media reported Israeli strikes across a number of southern towns and villages, and the Israeli army issued fresh evacuation warnings to three villages north of the Litani River, and outside the area occupied by Israeli troops following their ground invasion of the border area.

Some of the Israeli strikes, on the southern city of Nabatieh, targeted a shopping center and residential buildings, state media and an AFP correspondent said.

In the nearby village of Toul, two rescuers from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were wounded in an Israeli strike as they were dispatched following a previous attack, spokesperson Mahmoud Karaki told AFP.

The team's ambulance was heavily damaged, he added.

The Israeli military said in a statement Thursday that an "explosive drone impact" wounded four soldiers -- one severely -- in southern Lebanon the previous day.

Despite the ceasefire, Hezbollah regularly claims attacks against Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Lebanon.

Since the war began on March 2, Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,700 people in Lebanon.

The Israeli military says it has lost 17 soldiers and a contractor in south Lebanon.


Israeli Attack Kills Son of Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya

FILE PHOTO: Hamas officials, Khalil Al-Hayya and Osama Hamdan, attend a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, November 21, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Hamas officials, Khalil Al-Hayya and Osama Hamdan, attend a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, November 21, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo
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Israeli Attack Kills Son of Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya

FILE PHOTO: Hamas officials, Khalil Al-Hayya and Osama Hamdan, attend a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, November 21, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Hamas officials, Khalil Al-Hayya and Osama Hamdan, attend a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, November 21, 2023. REUTERS/Esa Alexander/File Photo

Azzam Al-Hayya, the son of Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas' exiled Gaza chief who had been leading indirect talks with Israel over the Palestinian enclave's future, died on Thursday, a day after he was wounded in a strike in Gaza City, medical sources and others from the Hamas movement told Asharq Al-Awsat.

One source at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital said that Azzam Al-Hayya’s injuries were “severe and critical,” while a Hamas source indicated that the Israeli attacks on Wednesday were large-scale and extensive, resulting in the deaths of at least five people across the Gaza Strip, in addition to the son of the senior Hamas leader.

Khalil Al-Hayya had already lost three sons in previous Israeli attempts on his life - two in Gaza in the 2008 and 2014 rounds of fighting, while the third was killed in an Israeli attempt to kill Hamas leadership in Doha last year.

Several of Al-Hayya’s daughters and grandchildren have also been killed in a series of attacks during the war in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Hayya is in Cairo as part of a Hamas delegation and is holding talks with regional mediators and the Board of Peace’s lead envoy, Nickolay Mladenov.

Al-Hayya on Wednesday accused Israel of trying to undermine mediators' efforts to ⁠push ahead with US President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, overseen by his Board of Peace.


South Sudan's President Kiir Sacks Army Chief, Finance Minister in Latest Reshuffle

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (archive - Reuters)
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (archive - Reuters)
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South Sudan's President Kiir Sacks Army Chief, Finance Minister in Latest Reshuffle

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (archive - Reuters)
South Sudan's President Salva Kiir (archive - Reuters)

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has dismissed the country's military chief and a finance minister who had been in post for less than three months, state media reported late on Wednesday.

The dismissals were the latest of frequent ‌changes in the top ‌ranks of Kiir's government ‌in ⁠recent years that ⁠analysts say signal an effort to consolidate power amid succession uncertainty.

The fired army chief, General Paul Nang, had occupied his position since October and his tenure had come under increasing scrutiny amid worsening insecurity in ⁠the country while the finance minister, ‌Salvatore Garang Mabiordit, ‌had served in the position since Feb 23, reported Reuters.

Kiir reappointed ‌General Santino Deng Wol as the ‌new army chief, state media South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation said. Wol, from South Sudan's Bahr El Gazal region where Kiir hails from, is ‌a close ally of the President and had served in the same ⁠post between ⁠2020 and 2024.

Kuol Daniel Ayulo, a career technocrat who had previously served at the finance ministry and ministry of trade as an undersecretary, has been appointed as the new finance minister, according to the state media. South Sudan has struggled to fully implement key reforms outlined in the 2018 peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war, including the unification of the armed forces and holding of elections.