First humanitarian aid reaches Gaza
After days of diplomatic wrangling, 20 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies crossed into the Gaza Strip on Saturday, providing a ray of hope for the more than 2 million residents of the enclave, whose living conditions the United Nations called “catastrophic.”
The first of what U.N. officials described as a trickle of aid, a respite in Israel’s siege of the enclave imposed after the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, came after negotiations, including during President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel this past week.
But the deal allowed the passage of only a fraction of the long line of trucks waiting to carry 3,000 tons of aid from Egypt into Gaza. Negotiations for future shipments were continuing, and it was unclear when more aid would be allowed in.
“The supplies currently heading into Gaza will barely begin to address the escalating health needs as hostilities continue to grow,” the World Health Organization, which supplied trauma kits as part of the convoy, said in a statement Saturday. “Much more is needed.”
The shipment was delayed for days out of Israeli concerns that it might be used to funnel weapons and munitions to Hamas. It did not include the fuel that the United Nations says is desperately needed to run medical facilities and desalination plants.
The Israeli military is blocking fuel from the territory because it fears it will be used by Hamas for military purposes.
Seven hospitals and 25 health care clinics are out of service because they ran out of fuel, and bed occupancy in Gaza’s remaining hospitals reached more than 150%, Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
Saturday marked two weeks since the Hamas rampage that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and triggered Israel’s declaration of war. Two of the more than 200 hostages believed to have been seized by Hamas during the raid, Judith Raanan and her teenage daughter, Natalie, were released Friday.
Negotiations are continuing among several countries and Hamas representatives in Qatar about the other hostages, but there is no indication of when they might be released or how they are faring in captivity.
With tanks, armored personnel carriers and militarized bulldozers massed near the northern Gaza border for what Israel has said will be a ground invasion to wipe out the top leadership of Hamas, residents of the enclave waited Saturday for full-scale war. The Israeli military has outlined plans of an invasion of Gaza that would include tens of thousands of soldiers ordered to capture Gaza City.
Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 4,385 people, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Fears persisted over the weekend that the war in Gaza could spread to a second front or more.
Israel and armed groups in Lebanon continued to exchange fire Saturday. The Israeli military said militants had launched missiles and rockets at Israel and that its forces had responded by striking targets in Lebanon, including some affiliated with Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities have ordered an evacuation of at least 29 communities close to the Lebanese border, including the city of Kiryat Shmona. As of Saturday, about 10,000 of its 23,000 residents remained, according to city council member Yoram Maman. Authorities hoped to begin wrapping up the operation by Sunday, he said.
Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s national airline, has begun to cancel and reschedule some flights in and out of Beirut as tensions rise with Israel. On Friday, the carrier said more than half of its airplanes would not be operating in the coming week. Foreign embassies in Lebanon in recent days have urged citizens to leave the country while commercial flights remain available.
Leaders, foreign ministers and diplomats from dozens of Arab, European, African and other countries gathered in Cairo on Saturday for a “peace summit” aimed at de-escalating the violence in Gaza. But after hours of speeches, they had little to show for the trip other than a gaping divide, as Arab leaders castigated Western countries for not speaking out about the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“The message the Arab world is hearing is loud and clear,” King Abdullah II of Jordan said. “Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives. The application of international law is optional, and human rights have boundaries; they stop at borders, they stop at races, and they stop at religions.”
One goal of any summit is to end in a joint statement that all the countries in attendance can agree on. But European leaders arrived in Cairo knowing they could not sign Egypt’s draft declaration, which did not mention Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, according to diplomats and officials involved in summit preparations.
In the end, there was no statement.
Still, the remarks of several European leaders made clear that the soaring civilian death toll and looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza had forced a subtle shift in rhetoric. Unlike in the first few days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilians, leaders on Saturday made sure to call on Israel to defend itself within the bounds of international law and urged greater protections for Palestinian civilians.