Israel reopens Gaza's key Rafah border crossing
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Rafah crossing reopens between Gaza and Egypt. Are enough Palestinians in urgent need of medical treatment able to use it? We hear from the family of one injured boy.
Also on the programme: the detention of a five-year-old in an immigration raid in Minnesota enrages a judge; and why seeing the iconic Trevi Fountain in Rome is now going to cost you.
(Photo: A Palestinian patient, accompanied by relatives, waits to leave Gaza for treatment abroad through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.8 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm Sean Lay. |
| 0:16.2 | The key link between Gaza and the outside world opened on Monday, having been mostly shut since May |
| 0:21.7 | 2024. The reopening was supposed to happen during the first phase of President Donald |
| 0:26.4 | Trump's ceasefire plan between Israel and Hamas, which began in October. But Israel blocked |
| 0:31.0 | it until the return of the body of the last Israeli hostage in Gaza, which happened last week. |
| 0:36.1 | The Israeli military organisation, which controls the Rafa crossing, says it's for now |
| 0:39.7 | only for those on foot, except for ambulances from Egypt, allowed to evacuate Palestinians in |
| 0:44.8 | need of medical treatment. |
| 0:46.3 | The daily limit is about 50 patients, with one or two relatives to care for them. |
| 0:50.3 | 50 others will be allowed back into Gaza each day. |
| 0:53.1 | Among the first to leave, when the crossing opened on Monday was Mohammed Mardi's father. |
| 1:01.0 | It feels like a dream, especially as my father, we had lost hope of him receiving treatment. |
| 1:06.5 | Then they suddenly called us and told him to come receive treatment and travel. |
| 1:10.4 | This mechanism, |
| 1:11.2 | this mechanism is a dream, a dream, I swear. Mona al-Absi wants to go the other way. A mother of two |
| 1:20.9 | young boys, she's been in Cairo, Egypt's capital, since last year, when she accompanied |
| 1:25.0 | her seven-year-old who was injured and needed treatment. |
| 1:29.7 | She spoke to News Hours Tim Franks. |
| 1:34.1 | My husband is still in Gaza, my family, my mother, my sisters, |
| 1:37.5 | and all the members of my family are staying in Gaza. |
... |
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