Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt will not be reopened on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Saturday shortly after the Palestinian embassy in Egypt said it would be.
"Its reopening will be considered based on how Hamas fulfills its part in returning the hostages’ remains and implementing the agreed-upon framework," the Prime Minister's Office explained.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum welcomed Netanyahu's decision. "However, the government of Israel must not rely on the mediators. It must take a firm stance toward Hamas, demand the return of all 18 hostages without exception, and use every lever at its disposal."
The forum urged the goverment to declare it will not continue implementing the agreement until all the killed hostages are returned to Israel.
Hamas, in a statement late on Saturday, said Netanyahu's decision "constitutes a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement and a repudiation of the commitments he made to the mediators and guarantor parties."
It also said the continued closure of the Rafah crossing would prevent the entry of equipment needed to search for and locate more hostage bodies under the rubble, and would thus delay the recovery and handover of the remains, two more of which were set to be handed over to Israel at 10 p.m. on Saturday.
The crossing, which has been largely closed since May 2024, would allow Palestinians residing in Egypt to return to Gaza, the embassy said.
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 Programme.
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.
Israel announced in late July that 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 to the enclave.
The reopening announcement of the border crossing separating Gaza and Egypt comes shortly after a report by The Guardian said that Cairo is expected to lead the international stabilization force within Gaza.
COGAT said on Thursday that preparations are ongoing with Egypt to open the crossing.
Other initiatives taken by Egypt on Gaza
Cairo has also proposed the deployment of 10,000 Palestinian security personnel in Gaza as part of the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, The Wall Street Journal said in late August.
Egyptian teams are said to be assisting in recovering the remains of Israeli hostages inside Gaza, a Tuesday report by Qatar’s Al Araby TV said.
Obstacles remain
Formidable obstacles to Trump's plan to end the war still remain. Key questions of Hamas disarming and how Gaza will be governed, the make-up of an international "stabilization force" and moves towards the creation of a Palestinian state have yet to be resolved.
The Media Line Staff and Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.