Israel Draws Regional Rebuke as Rafah Reopens with Strict Limits

A coalition of eight predominantly Muslim states issued a coordinated diplomatic protest after Israeli strikes in Gaza that local hospitals reported killed dozens in a recent high-casualty day. On Jan. 31, Gaza health facilities reported 23 fatalities from a series of operations that hit an apartment building, a tent encampment and a police compound; Gaza’s health authorities say 509 people have died from Israeli fire since the ceasefire began. The joint communiqué by Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia framed the strikes as damaging to regional stability and to nascent efforts to turn the truce into a more sustainable arrangement. At the same time, Israeli authorities initiated a tightly constrained, phased test reopening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt under European supervisory oversight. The operation has an immediate focus on medical evacuations and verified humanitarian flows: ambulances and aid trucks were inspected on the Egyptian side, Palestinian security personnel moved through Egypt to link with an EU mission, and screening by Israel and Egypt will be paired with EU monitoring. Israeli plans set a narrow initial quota—about 50 medical evacuations per day (each permitted up to two accompanying relatives) and roughly 50 Palestinians allowed to return daily—leaving total departures capped at roughly 150 people per day when companions are counted. These limits, combined with layered vetting, biometric and medical triage procedures and coordination among three authorities, mean throughput will not rapidly address Gaza’s documented backlogs. Humanitarian coordinators warn the scheduling, inspection bottlenecks and identity checks will slow case processing; clearing an estimated urgent medical backlog of some thousands of patients at that rate would take months, while documented displacement flows would take years to process. Complicating the relief outlook, Israel has demanded personnel lists from 37 aid groups and said operations that do not register and comply could be halted under a 60‑day compliance window; Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has rejected unconditional handover of names, arguing it would endanger local staff and impede care. MSF provides a substantial share of clinical capacity in Gaza, including roughly a fifth of hospital bed capacity and numerous primary care and maternity services, so its removal or any large-scale NGO withdrawal would sharply reduce treatment points. Politically, the coordinated regional protest signals a widening diplomatic breach that raises the political cost of continued Israeli military action and risks undermining confidence in the US‑mediated phased plan, which envisages new Palestinian administrative structures, international security oversight and demobilization measures. Operationally, episodic strikes and reactive military responses threaten to erode trust among the parties, complicate verification, and make predictable humanitarian access harder to achieve. Without rapid adjustments—either expanded, reliably managed crossing capacity, protective arrangements for NGO staff data, or restoration of international medical presence—humanitarian indicators in Gaza are likely to deteriorate while diplomatic pressure from Arab and Muslim-majority states intensifies.