On the first day of the Rafah crossing reopening, 30 Palestinians who attempted to return to the Gaza Strip were denied entry. The Palestinian Interior Ministry confirmed that 12 people entered the Strip from Egypt, and a report by the Qatari television channel Al-Araby stated that "30 out of 42 Palestinians who returned to the Strip were sent back to the Egyptian side." Palestinian sources told the channel that masked gunmen stopped those seeking to enter Gaza "500 meters from the Rafah crossing, and transferred them to an Israeli checkpoint, where they were interrogated and their property was confiscated."