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Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory.Visiting US envoys had reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing during talks in Jerusalem over the weekend.World leaders and aid agencies have repeatedly pushed for more humanitarian convoys to be able to access Gaza, which has been left devastated by more than two years of war and depends on the inflow of essential medical equipment, food and other supplies.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel had agreed to a reopening “for pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism”.The move would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100% effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages”, it said on X.The Israeli military said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.Netanyahu’s office said: “Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing.”The announcement came after Gaza’s newly appointed administrator, Ali Shaath, said the crossing would open “in both directions” this week.”For Palestinians in Gaza, Rafah is more than a gate, it is a lifeline and a symbol of opportunity,” Shaath said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.Israeli media had also reported that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had urged Netanyahu to reopen Rafah during their Jerusalem talks.- Last hostage -A spokesman for Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said on Sunday that the group had “provided mediators with all the details and information in our possession regarding the location of the captive’s body”, referring to Gvili.Obeida added that “the enemy (Israel) is currently searching one of the sites based on information transmitted by the Al-Qassam Brigades”.Except for Gvili, all of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have since been returned, whether living or dead.A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police’s elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action on the day of the attack and his body taken to Gaza.The first phase of the US-backed ceasefire deal had stipulated that Hamas hand over all the hostages in Gaza.Gvili’s family has expressed strong opposition to launching the second phase of the plan, which includes reopening Rafah, before they have received his remains.”First and foremost, Ran must be brought home,” his family said in a statement on Sunday.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.The Israeli retaliation flattened much of Gaza, home to about 2.2 million people, a territory that was already suffering severely from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there.

A UN humanitarian convoy arrived Sunday in the Kurdish-majority town of Kobane, which has been filled recently with people displaced by clashes in northern Syria, a spokesperson told AFP.Earlier Sunday, Syria’s military said it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the town, also known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic and once a symbol of Kurdish fighters’ victory against Islamic State group (IS) jihadists.The aid came as the Syrian authorities and Kurdish forces extended a ceasefire agreement after Kurdish forces relinquished swathes of territory to government troops.Earlier this week, residents in Kobane told AFP they lacked food, water and power, and that the enclave was flooded with people who had fled the Syrian army’s advances.The UN humanitarian agency OCHA had said on Sunday that 24 trucks were en route to the town carrying “life-saving aid, including fuel, bread, and ready-to-eat rations, to support people affected by recent developments”.The UN refugee agency’s spokesperson in Syria, Celine Schmitt, later told AFP the convoy had arrived.The convoy was coordinated with the Syrian government, according to the UN.In a statement, the Syrian military said it was opening two corridors, one to Kobane and another in nearby Hasakeh province to allow “the entry of aid”.- Trading accusations -Kobane is hemmed in by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides. It is around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Kurds’ stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.Kurdish forces accused the Syrian army of imposing a siege on the town.On Saturday, Syria’s government and Kurdish forces extended a four-day ceasefire by another 15 days. Damascus said it was intended to support the US transfer of IS detainees from Syria to prisons in Iraq, which started earlier this week.On Sunday night however, the two sides were trading accusations of violations.The army told state media that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had targeted its positions with drones.The SDF accused “Damascus-affiliated factions” of attacks around Kobane, including one that killed a child.The SDF, who have lost large areas to government forces during weeks of clashes, now find themselves restricted to Kurdish-majority areas in the northeast and Kobane.Kobane, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by IS in 2015, took on symbolic value as their first major victory against the jihadists.It took another four years for the SDF, supported by a US-led international coalition, to defeat IS territorially in Syria.Syria’s new Islamist authorities are demanding that the SDF disband. Washington has said the purpose of its alliance with the SDF has largely ended.On Saturday, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish DEM party said the situation in Kobane had escalated from a crisis into a “deadly catastrophe”, after it sent a delegation to visit the town.strs-rh/smw/jj