Israel allows limited re-opening of the crossing point between Gaza and Egypt
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It will come as a relief to many Palestinians who see it as a lifeline to the world, although there is frustration that only small numbers of people and no goods will be allowed through. Israeli reports say only 50 patients - accompanied by one or two relatives - will be allowed to exit each day. We hear from two women, one who wants to leave Gaza and one who wants to return.
Also on the programme: damaging new revelations about the links between a former British government minister and the American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and the dress rehearsal for the forthcoming mission to the moon.
(Photo: Palestinian patients prepare to travel for medical treatment to Egypt Credit: Haitham Imad/EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:13.4 | Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. We're starting the programme in Gaza with what one of our |
| 0:20.5 | interviewees has told us is an intoxicating possibility. |
| 0:24.5 | What a word that is to use in relation to the disaster of Gaza. |
| 0:27.8 | But it came from a young Gaza woman thinking about what today's news might mean. |
| 0:33.8 | And that news itself, that the Rafa border crossing, the crossing point between the south of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has reopened today after two years of largely being shut. |
| 0:45.8 | It's the only crossing point from Gaza that doesn't go into Israel. |
| 0:51.2 | And when I say it's reopened, it is a very limited reopening, as we can hear now, |
| 0:56.5 | from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Dan Johnson. Dan, tell me what the terms of this reopening mean. |
| 1:03.8 | Yeah, we are talking about very limited numbers to start with, for certain, only 50 patients |
| 1:10.4 | with two partners that they're allowed to take each. |
| 1:13.6 | So we're talking about 150 Palestinians being allowed to cross each way each day. |
| 1:19.3 | At least that is what we're told was agreed, but already this system seems to have run into difficulties. |
| 1:25.3 | The Egyptians are saying that the agreement was that 150 people could go into Gaza as well as coming out. Apparently the Israelis have said it's |
| 1:32.6 | 150 on the way out, only 50 patients on the way in with no accompanying family members. So |
| 1:38.9 | already this has run into difficulties and although it was announced this morning that this |
| 1:42.8 | process had begun, |
| 1:48.0 | the latest information we have is that no one's actually completed the crossing yet, |
| 1:54.0 | that the processing is taking many hours for those checks on who is moving, which way and with who. |
| 1:58.3 | So no one's actually made it across yet. But the hope is that will be completed for those limited numbers today and that perhaps then in the days and the |
| 2:01.1 | weeks to come the numbers can increase. Right. And obviously there are thousands upon thousands. |
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