Gaza-Egypt border crossing at Rafah partially reopens after more than 2 years
(LONDON) — The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has reopened to limited pedestrian traffic, Israeli authorities confirmed Monday.
The reopening is the first step in implementing the second phase of President Trump’s Gaza peace plan. The crossing has been completely closed to Palestinians in Gaza since May 2024. Egypt has not allowed unfettered access to its territory through the crossing.
“Following the arrival of the EUBAM teams on behalf of the European Union, the Rafah crossing has now opened to the movement of residents, for both entry and exit,” an Israeli security official told ABC News.
The first group of Palestinians returning from Egypt has arrived in the Gaza Strip. Khaled Megawer, Egypt’s North Sinai governor general, said 50 Palestinians were expected to cross into Egypt on Monday.
Raeed Al-Nemes, a Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) spokesperson, told ABC News that a total of 15 Palestinians – including five Palestinian patients and 10 relatives – left Gaza via the Rafah crossing on Monday.
“The health situation in Gaza is extremely dire,” he said, calling on international organizations and the National Gaza Administration Committee to pressure Israel to allow a larger number of patients to travel abroad for treatment.
On Sunday night, the Israeli Army released video and pictures of a new Israel Defense Forces security checkpoint it will use for Gazans entering Rafah. In a statement, the IDF said “forces have completed in recent days the establishment of the ‘Regavim’ designated checkpoint, which is managed by the security establishment in the area under IDF control.”
The IDF added, “The security establishment forces at the checkpoint check the identities of those entering against lists approved by the Israeli security establishment and carry out a strict inspection of their luggage.”
Israel said it will approve the names of all Gazans entering or leaving the area according to terms reached under Trump’s 20-point peace plan.
The Egyptian Ministry of Health announced Monday that 150 hospitals and approximately 300 ambulances were ready to receive injured and wounded Palestinians.
About 22,000 injured Gazans need medical evacuation, a Hamas spokesperson said Sunday.
On the other side of the crossing, about 10,700 Palestinians who have been evacuated to seek treatment outside Gaza through the World Health Organization will return to the territory after their treatment, the PRCS spokesman said.
A North Korea Scud-B missile (R) is displayed at the Korea War Memorial Museum on July 4, 2017 in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
(SEOUL and LONDON) — North Korea test-launched two short-range ballistic missiles on Tuesday afternoon, South Korean and Japanese officials said.
The missile launch took place just hours after Elbridge Colby, the U.S. under secretary of defense for policy, wrapped up his visit to South Korea early Tuesday morning and arrived in Japan.
Seoul and Pyongyang have been on edge over North Korea’s accusation that South Korea intruded its airspace with drones in January and last September.
The launches amounted to a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and posed “a serious issue concerning the safety of the Japanese people,” the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
“Japan has lodged a strong protest against North Korea and strongly condemned them,” the statement said in Japanese, which was translated by ABC News.
The missiles were fired from the Pyongyang area at about 4 p.m. and both traveled almost 350 kilometers, or about 217 miles, before splashing down into the Sea of Japan, Japanese and Korean officials said.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in its own statement that Seoul’s intelligence authorities tracked the launch and shared info with both Japan and the United States.
“Under a robust South Korea–U.S. combined defense posture, the South Korean military is closely monitoring various developments by North Korea and maintaining the capabilities and readiness to respond overwhelmingly to any provocation,” South Korea’s military said in a statement.
Japanese officials said the missiles were thought to have landed near the North Korean coast in the Sea of Japan, which is also known as the East Sea.
“The government has provided information to aircraft and ships sailing in the area, but at this time no reports of damage have been confirmed,” Japan said in a statement in Japanese, which was translated by ABC News.
Yurii Tynnyi/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Russia carried out a massive aerial attack across central and eastern Ukraine overnight, killing at least four people and injuring 26 others, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The Ukrainian Air Force said in a Telegram post Saturday morning that Russia overnight had launched 503 projectiles — 458 drones and 45 missiles — of which 415 were shot down while the remaining 78 struck 25 different locations across Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post Saturday morning that the targets of the latest Russian strikes “remain the same: ordinary life, residential buildings, our energy system, and infrastructure.”
The city of Dnipro was hit hard, with three people killed and another 11 injured there, according to the regional military administration, which said children were among the casualties. A drone struck an apartment building in the city. Three more were injured in the nearby Samarskyi district of the wider Dnipropetrovsk region, authorities said.
In the Kharkiv region, at least one person was killed in the village of Rokytne; eight others were injured in the suburbs of Kharkiv city; one person was injured in nearby Chuhuiv; and another was injured in the village of Hrushivka, according to the regional military administration. The mayor of Kharkiv said in a Telegram post Saturday morning that the city is facing a significant electricity shortage.
Additionally, one person was injured in the Poltava region and another person was injured in the neighboring Kyiv region, according to the respective regional military administrations. The strikes on the Poltava region targeted energy infrastructure facilities, cutting off electricity, water and heating to some communities, authorities said.
The Russian strikes mark the ninth large-scale attack on Ukraine’s gas infrastructure since the start of October, according to Ukrainian state-run energy firm Naftogaz, which in a Telegram post Saturday morning accused Russian of deliberately “targeting enterprises that provide Ukrainians with gas and heat” during the winter months.
The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in a Telegram post Saturday morning that it had targeted Ukrainian military and energy infrastructure in an overnight attack. The “massive strike” was carried out in response to “Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on civilian targets in Russia,” according to the Russian defense ministry.
People walk through fresh snow in the city center on January 18, 2026 in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney added his voice to the condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, warning that the international community is “in the midst of a rupture.”
Several allied leaders have used their speeches at the annual event in the Swiss Alps to push back on Trump’s pressure campaign over Greenland, which has seen Trump and administration officials propose tariffs on NATO allies and even threaten the use of force to seize control of the massive Arctic territory.
Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Danish and Greenlandic politicians have repeatedly rebuffed such proposals.
NATO allies have mobilized to bolster Greenlandic security in response to Trump’s assertions that the territory — and the wider Arctic region — are at risk from growing Chinese and Russian regional influence.
On Tuesday, Carney warned that the world has entered a new “era of great power rivalry,” in which “the rules-based order is fading … the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
“Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration,” Carney continued.
“But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” he added.
“On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” Carney said. “Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.”
Trump is scheduled to speak at Davos on Wednesday afternoon local time. Speaking with reporters before heading to Switzerland, the president showed no sign of softening his approach to the Greenland issue.
“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and we’re — we’re going to be very happy,” Trump said of the upcoming Davos trip during a press briefing. “But we need it for security purposes. We need it for national security and even world security. It’s very important.”
When asked by a reporter how far he was willing to go to secure Greenland, Trump replied, “You’ll find out.”
Other European leaders on Tuesday spoke at Davos and criticized Trump’s threat of tariffs on NATO allies related to Greenland.
The president announced new 10% tariffs on all goods from the eight nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Finland — that sent small contingents of troops to Greenland last week. The European nations said the deployments were for a military exercise intended to boost regional security.
Trump said the new tariffs will come into force on Feb. 1 and will increase to 25% on June 1. The president said the measures would remain in place until the U.S. is able to purchase Greenland.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech in Davos that the “proposed additional tariffs are a mistake.” Referring to the trade deal signed by the EU and U.S. in July, von der Leyen added, “In politics as in business, a deal is a deal.”
“Plunging us into a dangerous downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape,” she said. “Our response will be unflinching, united and proportional.”
On Wednesday, von der Leyen said during a press conference at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, “The threat of additional tariffs for security reasons is simply wrong.”
“We are at a crossroads. Europe prefers dialogue and solutions, but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency, and determination,” von der Leyen added.
European Council President Antonio Costa said, “Further tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-US agreement.” He added, “We stand ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies against any form of coercion.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, criticized “competition from the United States of America through trade agreements that undermine our export interests, demand maximum concessions, and openly aim to weaken and subordinate Europe.”
Such measures, he said, were “combined with an endless accumulation of new tariffs that are fundamentally unacceptable — even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty.”
The Greenland military exercises, Macron said, posed no threat and were a step taken to support Denmark. “Cooperating is not about blaming others,” Macron said. “We do prefer respect to bullies.”
On Wednesday, Paris called for new allied drills. “France requests a NATO exercise in Greenland and is ready to contribute,” a source at the Elysee Palace — which houses the presidential office — told ABC News.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, meanwhile, said in a post to Facebook on Tuesday that the autonomous territory must be “prepared for the worst.”
“It is unlikely that we will be arrested by force, but we cannot be indifferent either,” Nielsen wrote. “Our neighbor did not miss this opportunity. It is therefore important that we be prepared for the worst.”
Nielsen said Greenland is in “constant dialogue with the EU and NATO and others,” about the situation.
