Satellite imagery has revealed significant expansion works and notable new preparations at an existing Israeli military point on Salah al-Din Road near the Rafah Crossing in the southern Gaza Strip. This comes as the Israeli government announced its approval to reopen the crossing on a limited basis and under full Israeli supervision.
The satellite images, obtained by Al Jazeera’s digital investigations unit and captured between 31 December last year and 17 January this year, show developments at the military site. These include the positioning of Israeli tanks, the establishment of soldier posts, and a new expansion connected to an entry and exit point on Salah al-Din Road leading towards the Rafah Crossing.
The images also document clearer field changes after mid-January, including the levelling of adjacent land and the preparation of the surrounding area in a manner that suggests readiness for new monitoring tasks linked to the movement of travellers.
The checkpoint is located within Israeli-controlled areas in the city of Rafah, approximately 4.5 kilometres from the Palestinian side of the crossing.
Analysis of the imagery concluded that the geographic position of the checkpoint on Salah al-Din Road, before reaching the Rafah Crossing, grants the Israeli army the ability to control the movement of travellers and to impose inspection or interrogation procedures outside the scope of any declared Palestinian or international oversight.
The new Israeli plan for managing the crossing reportedly includes the construction of a modern facility equipped with advanced inspection systems. These would involve identity verification, X-ray screening, and close monitoring of passenger movement, all within a framework of full Israeli security supervision.
Israeli sources indicate that the European Union will oversee the Palestinian side of the new crossing, in coordination with the Palestinian General Intelligence Service. Lists of travellers would then be transferred to Israel’s Shin Bet security service for final security reviews.
Israel’s Channel 12 quoted a US official as saying that the Rafah Crossing is expected to reopen by the end of the current week.
On Monday, the Israeli army announced that it had found the body of the last Israeli captive in the Gaza Strip, police officer Ran Gvili, after declaring on Sunday that it was searching for his remains in Al-Batsh Cemetery in the Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City.
Over recent months, Israel has linked the reopening of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to the recovery of the remains of its last captive from the Strip.
