Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic one as few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will pass through.

An Egyptian official said 50 Palestinians were expected to cross in each direction on the first day of Rafah’s operation.

Within the first few hours of the opening, no one was seen crossing in or out of Gaza.

About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated territory via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials.

Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home.

State-run Egyptian media and an Israeli security official also confirmed the reopening.

Before the war, Rafah was the main crossing for people moving in and out of Gaza. The territory’s handful of other crossings are all shared with Israel.

Under the terms of the ceasefire, which went into effect in October, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live.

Violence still continued across the coastal territory on Monday, and Gaza hospital officials said an Israeli navy ship had fired on a tent camp, killing a 3-year-old Palestinian boy.

Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.

Meanwhile, Rajaa Abu Mustafa stood on Monday outside a Gaza hospital where her 17-year-old son Mohamed was awaiting evacuation. He was blinded by a shot to the eye last year as he joined desperate Palestinians seeking food from aid trucks east of the city of Khan Younis.

“We have been waiting for the crossing to open,” she said. “Now it’s opened and the health ministry called and told us that we will travel to Egypt for (his) treatment.”

About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive Palestinian patients evacuated from Gaza through Rafah, authorities said.

Also, the Egyptian Red Crescent said it has readied “safe spaces” on the Egyptian side of the crossing to support those evacuated from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began, a move that cut off what was previously the main outlet for Palestinians needing medical treatment unavailable in Gaza.

Israel has said it and Egypt will vet people for exit and entry through the Rafah crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents with a small Palestinian presence.

The number of travellers is expected to increase over time, if the system is successful. (AP)