00:00A early hostage has been recovered from Gaza, a return that should lead to the reopening of the Rafah crossing,
00:05a key entry point for aid into Gaza, and part of the agreement announced last October.
00:11Israel has said it will only be a limited reopening.
00:13Let's cross live to our correspondent in Jerusalem, Noga Tarnopolski, to find out a bit more.
00:19Noga, all of the hostages are now back.
00:21So is Israel going to stick to the agreement and reopen this crucial border?
00:25Well, it has given us very mixed messaging, is the truth, Eve.
00:33The Israeli government issued a statement just a few hours before the body, the remains of the final hostage, were located and brought out of Gaza.
00:43And it said basically that once he returned, once his body returned, that Israel would adhere to the terms of the Trump ceasefire agreement.
00:54But then added all kinds of other conditions.
00:59The border, this border crossing is between Gaza and Egypt, and it was supposed to be open quite a while ago.
01:06Israel, in fact, has three times previously said that Rafah would open between Egypt and Gaza and then not moved ahead to do anything.
01:15So this time there does seem to be more American pressure.
01:19But again, the Egyptians and the Palestinian Authority are supposed to be in charge of these two sides of a border that doesn't touch on Israel, although it has impacted Israel because over the years it did become a main point of smuggling into Gaza.
01:37So Israel has not been unequivocal.
01:39It has put a lot of conditions on adhering to this one point.
01:43And we're going to have to wait and see, in my estimation, how much pressure the United States puts on Israel.
01:51We do know that with authority from the United States, the technocratic new leader of Gaza, Ali Shait, who's supposed to head this government of technocrats now administering Gaza,
02:05he did announce that the border would be open by Thursday, free passage both sides.
02:12So he may have backing to have said that, and we're going to have to wait and see for the rest.
02:17OK, so a lot will rely on that pressure from the United States.
02:20But what impact do you think, the fact that there are now no Israeli hostages in Gaza, what impact will that have on how Israeli citizens see what's happening in Gaza?
02:29You know, where is public opinion on that and what their government may do next?
02:35I think this moment really is a moment of inflection for Israel, where this nightmare of hostage-taking,
02:43of citizens who were just taken away through a border that collapsed back in 2023,
02:50has simply become something that strangled Israeli society.
02:54It was unlivable for many, many thousands of people, and probably more than the hundreds of thousands we saw on the street.
03:02One possibility that we're seeing initial signs of, there's the budding of a new kind of opposition to Netanyahu,
03:10an insistence that he declare an end to the war.
03:13He would lose emergency powers in that case, and there would be really incredible pressure on him
03:20to finally move out of the way and allow for the establishment of a commission of inquiry.
03:26But that's just in the internal Israeli aspect of this, in the international aspect of there no longer being Israeli hostages in Gaza.
03:35What it means is that Israel has to move forward to phase two, as does Hamas.
03:40Phase two of the Trump ceasefire plan augurs a very difficult period of decision-making.
03:47Hamas, that was born and exists as an Islamist armed terror group,
03:53is going to have to give up its weapons and see to the disarming of all of Gaza,
03:58including other groups like the Islamic Jihad.
04:00I foresee that that will be quite difficult, and I equally foresee as difficult.
04:05Israel, according to the terms of this plan, will have to redeploy and leave Gaza,
04:10put its, you know, station its soldiers on the outward perimeter of Gaza.
04:15For Netanyahu, politically, that will be very difficult.
04:19For Hamas, on every level, this will be very difficult.
04:22So I expect that initially we're going to see stumbling blocks,
04:26and we're going to see from each side, most likely, a bit of feet dragging.
04:31Again, waiting to see how serious the Americans really are about putting this plan into place.
04:37No good, Hannah Polsky. Thanks very much indeed, our correspondent.
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