Israel and Egypt conducted a test reopening of the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Sunday.

Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees humanitarian and civil efforts in Gaza, said the crossing will be open to the public starting Monday morning, but only in a limited capacity, allowing roughly 150 people per day to cross.

Those headed to the crossing will be picked up by buses and brought in organized groups, with each of them being cleared by Israeli intelligence.

Israeli forces will provide security for the crossings in coordination with Egypt and under the supervision of the European Union mission.

Return from Egypt for Gaza residents will only be allowed for those who left Gaza during the course of the war, and only after prior security clearance by Israel.

‘The Rafah crossing has reopened for the movement of people only. Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing,’ COGAT said in a statement.

‘The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,’ the statement continued.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said last week that Israel agreed to the ‘limited reopening’ of the crossing under President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan.

‘As part of President Trump’s 20-point plan, Israel has agreed to a limited reopening of the Rafah Crossing for pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism,’ the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel wrote.

The Prime Minister’s Office said the reopening was contingent on the return of all living hostages and what it described as a ‘100 percent effort’ by Hamas to locate and return the remains of all deceased hostages.

The remains of the final Israeli hostage, Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili, were found by Israel and returned last week.

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.

A pair of Senate Republicans are pushing their House counterparts to reject the Trump-backed shutdown deal unless it includes Homeland Security funding and election integrity legislation. 

Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are calling on House Republicans to push back against the Senate-passed funding package, which includes bills to fund five agencies, including the Pentagon, as a partial government shutdown continues. 

They contended that the package needs to be retooled, and must include a modified version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act, dubbed the SAVE America Act, and the Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill, which was stripped out after Senate Democrats threatened to blow up the government funding process. 

Doing so could extend what was expected to be a short-term shutdown.

Scott said congressional Democrats would ‘NEVER fund DHS’ and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He voted against the package twice, arguing that the spending levels would further bloat the nation’s eye-popping $38 trillion national debt, and that the billions in earmarks betrayed Republicans’ previous vows of fiscal restraint.

‘If House Republicans don’t put the DHS bill back in, add the SAVE America Act and remove the wasteful earmarks, Democrats win,’ Scott said. ‘We must protect our homeland, secure our elections and end the reckless spending NOW!’

Lee also rejected the package in the Senate because of earmarks. He also agreed with Scott, and pushed for his SAVE America Act, which he introduced alongside Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, to be included.

‘To my friends in the House GOP: Please put DHS funding back in, then add the SAVE America Act,’ Lee wrote on X. 

The updated version of the SAVE Act would require that people present photo identification before voting, states obtain proof of citizenship in-person when people register to vote and remove noncitizens from voter rolls. 

But their demands run counter to the desire of President Donald Trump, who brokered a truce with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to strip the DHS bill following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti during an immigration operation in Minneapolis in order to ram the funding package through the Senate.

And any changes to the deal, like including the SAVE America Act or adding the DHS bill, would send the package back to the Senate, where Schumer and his caucus would likely reject it. 

That would create a back-and-forth between the chambers that would further prolong what was meant to be a temporary shutdown.

Their demands also place House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in a precarious position, given that several House Republicans want to extract concessions from congressional Democrats. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is already leading a charge to include the SAVE Act in the funding package. 

Johnson will have to shore up any resistance among his conference, given that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made clear to the speaker that any attempt to fast-track the legislation on Monday, when the House returns, would fail.

President Donald Trump has threatened legal action against author Michael Wolff and the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, insisting a newly released trove of Epstein-related files clears him of wrongdoing.

Trump was aboard Air Force One during a flight to Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday when he responded to a reporter’s question about the more than 3 million Epstein-related records and personal emails that the Justice Department released Friday.

‘It looked like this guy, Wolff, was a writer, was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me,’ Trump said. ‘I didn’t see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it’s the opposite of what people were hoping, you know, the radical left, that Wolff, who’s a third-rate writer, was conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to hurt me, politically or otherwise, and that came through loud and clear.’

Trump said there was a high likelihood that he would sue Wolff and the Epstein estate ‘because he was conspiring with Wolff to do harm to me politically. That’s not a friend.’

In one March 2016 email between Epstein and Wolff that Fox News Digital reviewed, Wolff is encouraging Epstein to come up with an ‘immediate counter narrative’ to James Patterson’s book about him, ‘Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him, and All the Justice that Money Can Buy.’

‘You do need an immediate counter narrative to the book,’ Wolff writes. ‘I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity. It’s a chance to make the story about something other than you, while, at the same time, letting you frame your own story.’

‘Also, becoming anti-Trump gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don’t have now,’ Wolff continues.

In a February 2016 email previously released, Wolff had suggested to Epstein that the disgraced financier is the ‘bullet’ that could end Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Regarding the latest Epstein document dump, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News Digital on Friday that ‘in none of these communications, even when doing his best to disparage President Trump, did Epstein suggest President Trump had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims.’

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that the Trump Kennedy Center will close later this year for a two-year period to undergo renovations.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the complex will close on July 4, coinciding with the nation’s 250th anniversary, at which point construction will begin on what he described as a ‘new and spectacular entertainment complex.’

Trump said the decision followed a yearlong review involving contractors, arts experts and other advisers. He added that the temporary closure would allow the renovations to be completed faster and at a higher quality than if construction were carried out while performances continued.

Trump said the approach would be ‘the fastest way’ to elevate the center, adding that the planned grand reopening would surpass previous versions of the venue.

The Trump Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Trump said the funds to carry out the renovation were already in place, though he did not provide an estimated cost or explain whether the project would be financed through federal funding, private contributions, or a combination of both.

The Trump Kennedy Center hosts hundreds of performances each year and is home to several resident companies. It was not immediately clear whether those events would be postponed or moved to other venues.

Since his return to office, Trump has undertaken a series of changes aimed at reshaping the look and feel of the White House and other iconic Washington landmarks.

In October, Trump unveiled a new monument dubbed the ‘Arc de Trump,’ which is planned to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary next year.

He has previously said that the large arch, a near twin of Paris’s iconic Arc de Triomphe, will welcome visitors crossing the Arlington Memorial Bridge from Arlington National Cemetery into the heart of the nation’s capital.

Trump’s taste for opulence is evident in the Oval Office, where gold accents now line the ceiling and doorway trim, reflecting his personal style.

Beyond the Oval Office, the administration has unveiled the ‘Presidential Walk of Fame,’ a series of portraits of past presidents displayed along the West Wing colonnade.

Among the largest projects underway is a 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom designed to accommodate roughly 650 seated guests. 

The administration has said the sprawling ballroom will adhere to the classical architectural style of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A Russian drone strike hit a bus carrying miners in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, killing at least 12 people.

Ukrainian emergency services later reported the death toll had risen to 15 in one of the deadliest single attacks on energy workers since the start of the war. 

The attack Sunday came a few hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a new round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia had been postponed.

A spokesperson for DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, which employed the workers, told Fox News Digital that drones had targeted the bus as it traveled ‘roughly 40 miles from the front line in central and eastern Ukraine.’

The DTEK spokesperson also described the incident as a ‘terrorist attack on civilian infrastructure.’

‘This strike was a targeted terrorist attack against civilians and another crime by Russia against critical infrastructure,’ the spokesperson added.

The bus was transporting miners after the end of their shift when it was hit by a Russian drone, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine also confirmed.

At least seven workers were injured, and a fire sparked by the impact was later extinguished by emergency crews.

‘The epicenter of one of the attacks was a company bus transporting miners from the enterprise after a shift in the Dnipropetrovsk region,’ the company also said in a statement.

Zelenskyy condemned the strike late Sunday, calling it another deliberate attack on civilians.

Earlier in the day, he announced that the next round of trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. would now take place Feb. 4-5 in Abu Dhabi, after originally being expected for Sunday.

‘Ukraine is ready for a substantive discussion, and we are interested in ensuring that the outcome brings us closer to a real and dignified end to the war,’ Zelenskyy said on X, adding that the delay had been agreed to by all sides.

The delay followed a surprise meeting Saturday in Florida between Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special envoy and head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.

The talks in Abu Dhabi are now expected to include representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the U.S., according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy warned Russia is stepping up its aerial campaign against civilian and logistical targets. 

‘Over the past week, Russia has used more than 980 attack drones, nearly 1,100 guided aerial bombs, and two missiles against Ukraine,’ he wrote on X on Sunday. ‘We are recording Russian attempts to destroy logistics and connectivity between cities and communities.’

In a statement, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko also explained the bus attack marked the company’s ‘single largest loss [of] life of DTEK employees since Russia’s full-scale invasion.’

‘We can already say with certainty that this was an unprovoked terrorist attack on a purely civilian target, for which there can be no justification,’ Timchenko said.

The attack marked ‘one of the darkest days in our history,’ he added. ‘DTEK teams are working with emergency services on the ground in Dnipropetrovsk region to ensure the injured, and families who have lost loved ones, get all the care and support they need. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten,’ he added.