"There is no directive whatsoever to open the Erez Crossing for goods. Israel's policy in Gaza is clear and has not changed: There will be no rebuilding before the disarmament of the Hamas terrorist organization and the complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip."
On August 27, 2026, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued the joint written statement above through their own offices. Eighteen days earlier, on August 9, Army Radio reporters Moriah Asraf and Doron Kadosh reported that the two men had approved — roughly two weeks before that, without public announcement — the start of infrastructure work in "Green Rafah," an area of eastern Rafah inside the Yellow Line, under IDF control and described as fully cleared and empty, to prepare a residential project for Palestinians outside Hamas control. The approved work covers earthmoving, electricity, water and sewer, and permits contractors and workers on site. According to that report the decision was taken at the same time as the decision to deploy a multinational force, and the political leadership was not authorizing placement of mobile homes or temporary structures at the site at least until November 2026 — after the October 27 election. The Prime Minister's Office responded that the report "distorts the facts and recycles old information," said the project is a pre-existing Emirati-backed pilot for temporary housing "free of Hamas rule" that had been running for months, and said electrical, sewage and water work would not be performed by Gazan contractors and would be supervised by the IDF. Transportation Minister Miri Regev said rebuilding "can begin in any demilitarized zone." The Israel Envelope Forum and Tzav 9 objected that "There is no demilitarized zone that is not held by our fighters," calling the plan "not a reconstruction plan - it is a resuscitation plan for terrorism." Hamas has not begun disarming. The primary line here is the ministers' own signed statement; the Army Radio account is a press report and is treated as one.
The August 9 report ran as a one-day he-said/radio-said item and was closed out by the PMO denial, which is the usual outcome when a government response contains a technically survivable distinction. The August 27 statement then ran on its own, as a flat restatement of policy, and no outlet set it beside the earlier report. Neither wording was pressed. "There will be no rebuilding" and "the project is a pre-existing pilot, and infrastructure work is approved" can both be true only if rebuilding excludes earthmoving, power, water and sewer at a cleared site — and nobody asked either office to define the word. The most specific detail in the whole sequence, that the visible portion is held until after the October 27 vote, appeared in one Israeli outlet's version and traveled nowhere.
Entry #35 recorded Netanyahu going on camera to cancel an anonymous version of his own position, and having to say it twice because the background channel had become the reported one. This is the same machinery in its ordinary configuration rather than its emergency one. The public line is categorical, in writing, over two ministers' names, and it forecloses nothing, because the operative decisions are unannounced and the key term is undefined. The election timing is the tell: if the work is consistent with stated policy, there is no reason to sequence its visible portion after a vote. Whether Green Rafah is reconstruction or preparation is genuinely arguable. That it was approved without announcement, dismissed as old news, restated as prohibited eighteen days later, and staged to become visible only after October 27 is not arguable — and it is a complete record that no outlet assembled.