Egypt-Gaza Border Crossing Opens, Letting Desperately Needed Aid Flow to Palestinians

Empty trucks wait on the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah for the aid trucks to cross from northern Egypt on October 21, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
Empty trucks wait on the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah for the aid trucks to cross from northern Egypt on October 21, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
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Egypt-Gaza Border Crossing Opens, Letting Desperately Needed Aid Flow to Palestinians

Empty trucks wait on the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah for the aid trucks to cross from northern Egypt on October 21, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)
Empty trucks wait on the Gaza border with Egypt at Rafah for the aid trucks to cross from northern Egypt on October 21, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (AFP)

The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let desperately needed aid flow to Palestinians running short of food, medicine and water in the territory that is under an Israeli siege.

More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid, which had been positioned near the crossing for days, began heading into Gaza.

Israel blockaded the territory and launched waves of punishing airstrikes following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.

Many in Gaza, reduced to eating one meal a day and without enough water to drink, are waiting desperately for aid. Hospital workers were also in urgent need of medical supplies and fuel for their generators as they treat huge numbers of people wounded in the bombings. Hundreds of foreign passport holders also waited to cross from Gaza to Egypt to escape the conflict.

The opening came hours after Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first of some 200 captives to be freed after the militant group's Oct. 7 incursion into Israel. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between the two.

The release came amid growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says is aimed at rooting out the militant group, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said Friday it does not plan to take long-term control over the tiny territory, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.

Hamas said it released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with Qatar.

The two had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on Oct. 7 when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting 203 others.

The family had heard nothing from them since the attack and were later told by US and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie’s brother Ben said.

US President Joe Biden spoke with the two freed hostages and their relatives. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which transported the freed Americans from Gaza to Israel, said their release was “a sliver of hope.”

Relatives of other captives welcomed the release and appealed for more people to be freed.

Hamas said in a statement that it was working with mediators “to close the case" of hostages if security circumstances permit. The group added that it is committed to mediation efforts by Egypt, Qatar and other countries.

Qatar said it would continue its dialogue with Israel and Hamas in hopes of winning the release of all hostages “with the ultimate aim of de-escalating the current crisis and restoring peace.”

Associated Press reporters saw two large explosions in northern Gaza early Saturday, and rockets set off air raid sirens in a nearby Israeli town.

A potential Israeli ground assault is 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 slain during the Hamas incursion. Palestinian militants have continued to launch unrelenting rocket attacks into Israel — more than 6,900 projectiles since Oct. 7, according to Israel.

More than 4,100 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry run by Hamas. That includes a disputed number of people who died in a hospital explosion earlier this week.

Speaking to lawmakers about Israel’s long-term plans for Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant laid out a three-stage plan that seemed to suggest Israel did not intend to reoccupy the territory it left in 2005.

First, Israeli airstrikes and “maneuvering” — a presumed reference to a ground attack — would aim to root out Hamas. Next will come a lower intensity fight to defeat remaining pockets of resistance. And, finally, a new “security regime” will be created in Gaza along with “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip,” Gallant said.

Gallant did not say who Israel expected to run Gaza if Hamas is toppled or what the new security regime would entail.

Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 until 2005, when it pulled up settlements and withdrew soldiers. Two years later, Hamas took over. Some Israelis blame the withdrawal from Gaza for the five wars and countless smaller exchanges of fire since then.

The humanitarian crisis has worsened for Gaza’s civilians every day since Israel halted entry of supplies. Two days after Israel announced a deal to allow Egypt to send in aid, the border remained closed Friday as Egypt repaired the Rafah crossing, damaged by Israeli strikes.

Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate from north to south within the sealed-off enclave on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. 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.

Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals were rationing their dwindling resources.

Generators in Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, were operating at the lowest setting to conserve fuel while providing power to vital departments such as intensive care, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. Others worked in darkness. The lack of medical supplies and water make it difficult to treat the mass of victims from the Israeli strikes, he said.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it had received a threat from the Israeli military to bomb Al-Quds Hospital. It said Israel has demanded the immediate evacuation of the Gaza City hospital, which has more than 400 patients and thousands of displaced civilians who sought refuge on its grounds, it said.



Israeli Strikes Kill 14 People in Gaza, Mediators Strive for a Truce Deal

 Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 5, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 5, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 14 People in Gaza, Mediators Strive for a Truce Deal

 Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 5, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 5, 2025. (Reuters)

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 Palestinians in three separate attacks in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, taking the weekend death toll to 102, Palestinian medics said, as US and Arab mediators stepped up efforts to conclude a ceasefire deal.

Health officials said an Israeli airstrike killed five people in a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while another airstrike killed four others in Jabalia in the northern edge of the enclave, where Israeli forces have been operating for three months.

Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing five people, medics said. It wasn't immediately clear if all the dead were policemen.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on Sunday's strikes.

Earlier on Sunday, the health ministry of Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes across the territory had killed at least 88 Palestinians and wounded more than 200 others in the past 24 hours.

In Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, relatives and neighbors rushed to the Zuhd family's house, which was struck by an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday, killing seven people, medics said. The search continued on Sunday morning for four others believed to be trapped under the rubble.

A hand belonging to one of the dead could be seen amongst the ruins, with the rest of his body buried under collapsed masonry. Three men removed dirt with their bare hands to retrieve bodies and search for possible survivors.

"Three young men, the son’s wife, and three children are still here. We retrieved this cousin of mine. Another cousin has been martyred and is now in the hospital. Approximately 11 people have been martyred here," Ammar Zuhd, a relative, told Reuters.

ISRAEL SAYS DOZENS OF HAMAS MILITANTS KILLED

The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that its forces had attacked more than 100 targets across Gaza over the weekend, killing dozens of Hamas fighters. It said it had also destroyed rocket launching sites that had been used to wage rocket attacks on Israel in recent days.

A renewed push is underway to reach a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, and return Israeli hostages who were taken to Gaza, before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Israeli negotiators were dispatched on Friday to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, while US President Joe Biden's administration, which is helping to mediate, urged Hamas to agree to a deal.

Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement as soon as possible, but it was unclear how close the two sides were.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas fighters on communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has leveled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,805 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.