Financial Times prioritises narrative over facts on Rafah re-opening

A Financial Times (FT) article, “Israel prepares to open Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt”, Feb. 1, written by Heba Saleh, misleads readers in multiple paragraphs:

First, there’s this:

The limited reopening [of the Rafah crossing] follows a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory that began in October. The crossing has been largely closed, apart from a few weeks in 2025, since May 2024, when Israel’s army seized the Rafah region and border with Egypt.

This sentence obfuscates that it was Egypt who closed the Rafah crossing after Israel took control of the Gaza side of the crossing in order to stop the flow of weapons to Hamas. In fact, in August, 2024, we prompted a correction at the outlet to that same misleading claim, in an article also written by Selah.

The article then claims that Gaza still isn’t receiving sufficient quantities of food and other aid:

Humanitarian provision via the enclave’s crossings with Israel has increased since the ceasefire, though officials say the quantities are not enough for the war-ravaged territory and its hungry population.

In fact, even the United Nations reported, in early January, that Gaza was receiving “100 per cent of [its] basic food needs”

The article then tells readers that the Rafah crossing is the Palestinian territory’s sole gateway to the wider world.

Israel is preparing to allow pedestrian traffic through Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt from Monday, in a partial restoration of the Palestinian territory’s sole gateway with the wider world.

That’s not true, according to multiple reports, citing data from Cogat. This is from a report at Ynet:

With the Rafah border crossing closed, Israel developed a system to transfer patients in serious condition to third countries willing to receive them. Patients are screened for security and leave Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing before continuing through either Ramon Airport or the Allenby Bridge.

The UN has also reported that the Kerem Shalom crossing has been used as for Palestinian patients en route to outside countries since Rafah’s closure – representing another “gateway” to the world.

The FT further claims that “Israel has largely barred Palestinians from leaving the territory” since Oct. 7, 2023.

Yet, as Associated Press (AP) reported on Jan. 31, 2026, “More than 10,000 patients have left Gaza for treatment abroad since the war began“, citing a report by OCHA based on data from the director of the World Health Organisation, which lists the number at 10,700.

Moreover, that’s merely the number of Israeli-approved medical exits, a number that doesn’t include the total number of Palestinians who left the territory. Figures reported in several media outlets, based on data from the Palestinian embassy in Cairo, show that, from Oct. 7, 2023 through June of 2024, 115,000 Gazans left the territory for Egypt – a fact that Selah, the outlet’s Cairo-correspondent, certainly should have been familiar with.

We complained to FT editors, who rejected our complaint, save a superficial change to the description of Rafah as “the Palestinian territory’s sole gateway with the wider world”, to “the Palestinian territory’s sole direct gateway with the wider world”.

Earlier today, we appealed their decision to outlet’s Editorial Complaints Commissioner – representing the final stage of their complaints process.

Join the Conversation

2 Comments

says: Sid Levine

February 6, 2026 at 1:16 pm

Primary practice address
5RB, 5 Gray’s Inn Square, Gray’s Inn, LONDON, WC1R 5AH, United Kingdom
Primary practice switchboard number
(+44) 020 7242290

says: Sid Levine

February 6, 2026 at 1:21 pm

Previous appeals to the Editorial Complaints Commissioner Christina Michalos KC by individuals were rejected because she is not impartial regarding Israel.