The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off in the wake of Hamas’ attack two weeks ago.
Just 20 trucks were allowed in, an amount that aid workers said is insufficient to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid have been positioned near the crossing for days.
Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Hospitals say they are running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide power blackout.
Five hospitals have stopped functioning because of fuel shortages and bombing damage, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.
There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says will be aimed at rooting out Hamas.
Israel said on Friday that it does not plan to take long-term control over the small but densely populated Palestinian territory.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened his Cabinet late on Saturday to discuss the expected invasion, Israeli media reported.
Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the country plans to step up its air strikes as preparation for the next stage of the war.
“We will deepen our attacks to minimise the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war. We are going to increase the attacks, from today,” he said, repeating his call for Gaza City residents to head south for their safety.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas but has given few details about what it envisions for Gaza if it succeeds.
Yifat Shasha-Biton, a Cabinet minister, said there is broad consensus in the government that there will have to be a “buffer zone” in Gaza to keep Palestinians away from the border.
“We need to create a distance between the border and our communities,” she told Channel 13 TV, adding that no decisions had been made on its size or other specifics.
The border crossing opening came after more than a week of high-level diplomacy by various mediators, including visits to the region by US president Joe Biden and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres.
Israel had insisted that nothing would enter Gaza until Hamas released all of the captives from its attack, and the Palestinian side of the crossing had been shut down by Israeli air strikes.
Late on Friday, Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first captives to be freed.
It was not immediately clear if there was a connection between the release and the aid deliveries. Israel says Hamas is still holding at least 210 captives.
On Saturday morning, an Associated Press reporter on the Palestinian side of Rafah saw the 20 trucks heading north to Deir al-Balah, a quiet farming town where many evacuees from the north have sought shelter.
Hundreds of foreign passport holders at Rafah hoping to escape the conflict were not allowed to leave.
The trucks were carrying 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the UN’s children’s agency – enough for 22,000 people for a single day, it said.
“This first, limited water will save lives, but the needs are immediate and immense,” said Unicef executive director Catherine Russell.
The World Health Organisation said four of the 20 trucks that crossed through Rafah were carrying medical supplies, including essential supplies for 300,000 people for three months, trauma medicine and supplies for 1,200 people, and 235 portable trauma bags for first responders.
“The situation is catastrophic in Gaza,” said the head of the UN’s World Food Programme, Cindy McCain. “We need many, many, many more trucks and a continual flow of aid.”
She added that some 400 trucks were entering Gaza daily before the war.
The Hamas-run government in Gaza also said the limited convoy “will not be able to change the humanitarian catastrophe”, calling for a secure corridor operating around the clock.
Rear Admiral Hagari said “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is under control”.
He said the aid will be delivered only to southern Gaza, where the army has ordered people to relocate, adding that no fuel will enter the territory.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken appealed to all sides to keep the crossing open for crucial aid shipments and warned Hamas to not take the aid.
“Palestinian civilians are not responsible for Hamas’s horrific terrorism, and they should not be made to suffer for its depraved acts,” he said in a statement. “As President Biden stated, if Hamas steals or diverts this assistance it will have demonstrated once again that it has no regard for the welfare of the Palestinian people.”
It will also make it hard to keep the aid flowing, he said.
Mr Guterres, meanwhile, voiced growing international concern over civilians in Gaza, telling a summit in Cairo that Hamas’s “reprehensible assault” on Israel two weeks ago “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
Two Egyptian officials and a European diplomat said extensive negotiations with Israel and the UN to allow fuel deliveries for hospitals have so far yielded little progress.
One Egyptian official said they were discussing the release of dual-national hostages in return for the fuel, but that Israel was insisting on the release of all hostages.
Hamas released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, on Friday for what it said were humanitarian reasons in an agreement with Qatar, a Persian Gulf nation that has often served as a Middle East mediator. A representative for the pair said they were staying with relatives in central Israel.
The two had been on a trip from their home in Chicago to Israel to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting at least 210 others.
Mr Biden has spoken on the phone with the two freed Americans, telling them he was glad they had been released.
“We’re going to get them all out, God willing,” he said.
Natalie thanked Mr Biden for his “services” to Israel, while mas Raanan said they are in good health.
Hamas said it is working with Egypt, Qatar and other mediators “to close the case” of hostages if security circumstances permit.
There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says would be aimed at rooting out Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said on Friday it does not plan to take long-term control over the small but densely populated Palestinian territory.
Judith and Natalie, I’m so glad you’re coming home. pic.twitter.com/c7az0PcYXn
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 21, 2023
Israel has also traded fire along its northern border with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, raising concerns about a second front opening up.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to recent rocket launches and attacks with anti-tank missiles.
“Hezbollah has decided to participate in the fighting, and we are exacting a heavy price for this,” Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to the border.
Israel issued a travel warning on Saturday, ordering its citizens to leave Egypt and Jordan – which made peace with it decades ago – and to avoid travel to a number of Arab and Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain, which forged diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020.
Protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza have erupted across the region.
An Israeli ground assault would be likely to lead to a dramatic escalation in casualties on both sides in urban fighting. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the war – mostly civilians killed during the Hamas incursion.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. That includes the disputed toll from a hospital explosion. The ministry says another 1,400 are believed to have been buried under rubble.
The Hamas-run Housing Ministry said at least 30 per cent of all homes in Gaza have been destroyed or heavily damaged in the war.
Hosting a summit on Saturday, Egypt president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for ensuring aid to Gaza, negotiating a ceasefire and resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last broke down more than a decade ago.
He also said the conflict will never be resolved “at the expense of Egypt”, referring to fears that Israel may try to push Gaza’s population into the Sinai Peninsula.
King Abdullah II of Jordan told the summit that Israel’s air campaign and siege of Gaza are “a war crime” and criticised the international community’s response.
“Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, electricity, and basic necessities would be condemned,” he said.
Apparently, he added, “human rights have boundaries. They stop at borders, they stop at races, they stop at religions”.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called for an international peace summit to bring about the end of the war.
Speaking at the summit in Cairo, Mr Abbas reiterated his “complete rejection of the killing of civilians on both sides”.
He also urged the “release of all civilians, prisoners, and detainees”, probably alluding to some 210 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Mr Abbas leads the Palestinian Authority, a government exercising semi-autonomous control in the West Bank. The government is deeply loathed among Palestinians, who view it as corrupt and collaborationist with Israel.
Hamas seized control of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip in 2007 and enjoys a strong base of support in the West Bank.
More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate from north to south within the sealed-off coastal enclave.
But Israel has continued to bomb areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and some appear to be going back to the north because of bombings and difficult living conditions in the south.
