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The partial reopening of the Rafah crossing has been welcomed in some quarters as a diplomatic breakthrough, even framed as a gesture of goodwill. This narrative, however, misses the point — and risks lowering the bar.
Humanitarian access to civilians under siege is not an act of generosity, nor is it a concession deserving gratitude. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law and a moral imperative grounded in the most basic principles of human dignity.
For Gaza’s more than 2 million people, Rafah is not symbolic. It is a lifeline — often the only corridor for wounded civilians seeking advanced medical care, the primary entry point for humanitarian assistance, and the sole exit for students, families, and professionals whose lives have been suspended by closure.
When this artery is sealed or restricted, the consequences are immediate and measurable: preventable deaths, untreated trauma, food insecurity, and a deepening sense of abandonment.
That is why the reopening of Rafah should not be framed as a political achievement, but as the bare minimum required by law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is obligated to ensure the provision of food and medical supplies to the civilian population (Article 55) and to facilitate relief operations when civilians are inadequately supplied (Article 59).
Additional Protocol I further requires parties to allow rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian assistance. These obligations are reinforced by UN Security Council Resolution 2286, which affirms the protection of medical services and access to care during armed conflict.
Seen through this legal framework, Rafah’s opening is not progress — it is compliance, partial and overdue.
Yet even with Rafah open, Gaza remains under severe closure. Israel continues to exercise decisive control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, maritime access, population registry, and most commercial crossings — realities recognized by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross as constituting effective control under international law.
This means that legal responsibilities persist regardless of administrative arrangements or troop deployments.
The result is a paradox: Gaza is described as “unoccupied,” yet subjected to one of the most restrictive movement regimes in the world. Rafah, in this context, functions less as a gateway to freedom than as a pressure valve — opened temporarily during crises, then closed when attention fades. This is not sustainable humanitarian policy. It is crisis management.
That is why the formation of the Board of Peace is not merely welcome — it is necessary. For decades, Palestinian civilians have experienced relief in bursts and rights in fragments. Humanitarian access has been conditional, political progress episodic, and accountability largely absent.
The Board of Peace offers something fundamentally different: a structured, internationalized mechanism that can institutionalize civilian protection, safeguard humanitarian corridors, and ensure that temporary openings translate into permanent norms.
The UN has long warned that humanitarian action cannot substitute for political resolution. Relief corridors, however necessary, cannot replace political corridors toward stability, rights, and peace.
Hani Hazaimeh
This matters because humanitarian relief without political grounding produces dependency rather than dignity. Gaza today risks becoming the world’s most enduring emergency — sustained by aid flows but denied sovereignty, economic recovery, and meaningful self-rule.
The UN has long warned that humanitarian action cannot substitute for political resolution. Relief corridors, however necessary, cannot replace political corridors toward stability, rights, and peace.
The Board of Peace must therefore ensure that Rafah’s reopening is not treated as an endpoint but as a baseline. It must work to transform ad hoc humanitarian gestures into durable legal guarantees.
That means institutionalizing crossings under international oversight, insulating humanitarian access from political pressure, and embedding civilian protection within enforceable frameworks rather than discretionary arrangements.
International law is clear: collective punishment is prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yet Gaza’s closure regime — which restricts movement, trade, medical access, reconstruction materials, and energy supply — has affected the entire civilian population indiscriminately.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory has repeatedly characterized these policies as incompatible with humanitarian law.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights further guarantees rights to health, food, education, and an adequate standard of living — rights that UN treaty bodies affirm apply fully to occupied territories.
Against this backdrop, Rafah’s reopening is not generosity — it is an obligation. But obligation alone does not produce stability. That requires sustained implementation, monitoring, and accountability. This is precisely where the Board of Peace can play a transformative role.
First, the Board can serve as a guarantor that humanitarian access remains uninterrupted, predictable, and needs-based rather than politically contingent. Second, it can provide oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law and human rights standards.
Third, it can help coordinate international funding streams not merely toward emergency relief, but toward reconstruction, institutional rebuilding, and long-term civilian resilience. Fourth — and most importantly — it can anchor humanitarian action within a political process that restores Palestinian agency, dignity, and self-determination.
Because humanitarian corridors without political horizons become permanent bottlenecks.
Gaza’s people do not need symbolic openings. They need structural change — freedom of movement, functioning healthcare, economic recovery, education systems, and security grounded in rights rather than coercion. They need the normalization of civilian life, not the normalization of crisis.
The opening of Rafah also raises a deeper question: what kind of peace does the international community seek? One that manages suffering, or one that ends it? One that celebrates minimum compliance, or one that demands full accountability? One that stabilizes conflict, or one that resolves it?
International humanitarian law was not drafted to regulate benevolence. It was drafted to regulate power. It exists precisely because civilians cannot be left at the mercy of political calculation or military discretion.
When humanitarian obligations are framed as favors, accountability dissolves. When relief is framed as diplomacy, rights are reduced to transactions. And when survival becomes conditional, law becomes optional.
This is why language matters. Gratitude implies benevolence. Benevolence implies choice. And choice implies the absence of obligation. None of these apply here.
The Board of Peace must ensure that Rafah becomes a precedent, not an exception — a floor, not a ceiling. It must also ensure that humanitarian progress does not become decoupled from political progress.
The UN General Assembly has repeatedly affirmed the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, including sovereignty over their territory and natural resources.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334 reaffirmed the applicability of international law to the occupied Palestinian territory and called for steps to preserve the viability of a two-state solution. These frameworks remain the legal and moral foundation for any sustainable peace architecture.
Because Gaza’s crisis is not merely humanitarian. It is structural. It is political. And it is legal. And while Rafah’s reopening may save lives — as it must — it cannot be mistaken for justice.
Justice begins when access is no longer conditional. When crossings are no longer bargaining chips. When civilians are no longer hostages to geopolitics. When international law is not selectively applied but universally enforced.
The opening of Rafah should be welcomed as a humanitarian necessity. But it should never be mistaken for generosity — nor allowed to substitute for deeper obligations.
The real test is not whether Rafah opens today, but whether it remains open tomorrow — and whether Gaza’s people are finally granted what international law already guarantees them: freedom of movement, access to healthcare, economic dignity, and protection from collective punishment.
Because peace does not begin with gratitude. It begins with rights. And rights, once recognized, must never again be conditional.
- Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh