A UN vehicle escorts ambulances and a bus carrying Palestinian patients in Khan Younis as they travel to the Rafah crossing to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad, February 3, 2026HE treatment of Palestinians attempting to use the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt amounts to “collective punishment,” Hamas said today.
Palestinians are suffering “mistreatment, abuse and deliberate extortion” at the crossing, which was opened on Monday, the resistance group said, adding that such treatment “constitutes fascist behaviour and organised terrorism” and amounts to “collective punishment.”
Hamas said: “Painful field testimonies have revealed degrading practices, including the abduction of women from among the travellers, blindfolding them, subjecting them to lengthy interrogations with irrelevant questions, threatening some with their children and attempting to extort one of them into collaborating.
“This confirms that what is happening is not ‘crossing procedures’ but rather systematic violation aimed at instilling fear and deterring people from returning to their homes,” the group added.
The long-awaited reopening of the territory’s southern border crossing with Egypt was supposed to alleviate the punishing military siege of Gaza.
But Israeli authorities have continued to enforce strict security restrictions and a complex bureaucratic process that allows only a small number of people to travel in either direction.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that only five patients from Gaza had passed through the Rafah crossing on Monday.
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Continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/treatment-palestinians-crossing-rafah-collective-punishment-hamas-says
