Closed almost entirely for nearly three months, the vital terminal reopened at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) and was due to remain operational until 5:00 pm before opening again Saturday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, an EU official said.
Police briefly opened fire into the air when some civilians tried to force their way through the border, prompting a 15-minute interruption to crossings, a Palestinian security source said.
Thousands of people could be seen waiting to cross into Egypt, among them students weeks late for university courses abroad, the infirm seeking medical treatment, Muslim pilgrims hoping to get to Saudi Arabia, and businessmen.
Around 15 to 20 buses so heavily loaded their doors could not be shut, with passengers and baggage piled on to their roofs, could be seen queuing on the Palestinian side alongside a line of people waiting in wheelchairs.
Shortly after the terminal opened, a couple of buses began very slowly, one by one, to rumble toward Egypt.
A toothless, wheelchair-bound 65-year-old Ali Mussa Hamu, who lost one leg due to a tumor and sat with a prosthetic limb in his lap, his bandaged stump sticking out of a hospital gown, was waiting to get to hospital in Cairo.
"I was supposed to be there August 26," the Palestinian said.
The Rafah terminal has been closed nearly continuously since late June after militants from Gaza killed two Israeli soldiers and seized a third in a cross-border raid that sparked a massive Israeli military offensive.
Pekka Korhola, a spokesman for the EU monitors at the border, said that only students, the sick, and pilgrims were being allowed from Gaza into Egypt Friday, with everyone due to be able to travel Saturday.
There were no restrictions on access from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, however, the EU spokesman said.
Korhola estimated that about 1,000 people would exit Gaza through Rafah Friday, expressing hopes that the crossing would remain open as normal after the initial two-day dispensation agreed by Israel.
He said that the crossing had been open only seven days for humanitarian reasons since late June.
"I'm two weeks late for school, which started two weeks ago. I wanted to be the first one across," said 21-year-old Rana Saba, trying to fight her way onto an already packed bus, desperate to get back to university in Amman.
"I study medicine and this is very serious. It'll be hard to catch up," said Sameh Ayesh, a 32-year-old Palestinian medical student who studies in Khartoum who said that he was one month late for the start of term.
The prolonged closures of the crossing have left thousands stranded on either side of the border amid the persistent Israeli offensive on Gaza.
The European Union has deployed observers at Rafah, at the request of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, to monitor agreements on border traffic.
Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz Friday ordered the border crossing to open "in the coming days."
"The Israeli army, however, will decide on this reopening in keeping with the situation on the ground," a ministry spokesman said.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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