Aid deliveries have begun moving into the besieged Gaza Strip, two weeks after the militant group Hamas rampaged through southern Israel and Israel responded with airstrikes.
Israel says Hamas has freed two American hostages who had been held in Gaza since the war began Oct. 7. Israeli airstrikes continued to hit southern Gaza, an area swollen by civilians who fled there from the north on Israeli instructions.
The war, which is in its 15th day on Saturday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday that the death toll has reached 4,385, while 13,561 people have been wounded.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants stormed into Israel. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Currently:
1. Egypt is hosting dozens of regional leaders and senior Western officials for a summit on the war.
2. Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are marching in London and other cities.
3. A tent camp for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza reawakens old traumas.
4. The fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has spilled into workplaces everywhere.
Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:
CAIRO SUMMIT
CAIRO — At a summit of world leaders in Cairo focused on ways to de-escalate the raging Israel-Hamas war, representatives from Arab and European nations called for more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and appealed for protection of civilians in the strip.
Several Arab leaders, including Egypt and Jordan, took the opportunity to castigate the international community over its inaction and a double standard they said that the world displayed on the devastating Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza.
The response of the world, the office of President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi said, displayed a “shortcoming in the values of the international community in addressing crises.”
“While we see one place officials rushing and competing to promptly condemn the killing of innocent people, we find incomprehensible hesitation in denouncing the same act in another place,” it said in reference to fierce Western condemnation of Hamas’ attack on Israel and a weaker reaction to Palestinian suffering.
The summit did not immediately produce any statements about the prospects of a cease-fire
UN MONITOR SAYS MORE AID IS NEEDED
JERUSALEM —- A United Nations monitor says the 20 trucks of aid delivered to Gaza are just a “tiny fraction” of what is needed by some 1.4 Palestinians who have been displaced since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Normally, 500 trucks pass through crossings into Gaza every day. The 20 trucks that arrived Saturday were the first to arrive there in two weeks.
Andrea De Domenico is the head of the U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territories. He says UNWRA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, is working the World Food Program, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization to direct the aid to those most in need. But he said it will be challenging to get aid into the hands of people who are not staying at U.N. facilities.
The aid consists of canned food such as tuna, basic medical supplies, medicines, and water. He said the U.N. is pushing for an “unimpeded” flow of aid into the strip through the Rafah crossing, but that discussions of further aid are mired in deliberations “between parties.”
“If we don’t stabilize the supply pipeline,” Domenico said, “we head toward catastrophe.
DUAL CITIZENS CAN’T GET OUT OF GAZA
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian Americans and other dual citizens rushed to southern Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt on Saturday as 20 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid entered the besieged strip that has staggered under shortages of medicine and food.
Even as embassies asked their citizens in Gaza to stand ready at the border, crowds of disappointed Palestinians holding American, Canadian, German and British passports waited hours in vain for at least fifth time this week.
“There is no opening of the crossing, and the suffering is the same,” said U.S. citizen Dina al- Khatib. “They communicate with us, but there is no change.”
With a humanitarian disaster brewing in Gaza, al-Khatib said she and her family were desperate to get out.
“It’s is not like previous wars,” she said. “There is no electricity, no water, no internet, nothing.”
IDF OFFICIAL: PRIVATE HOMES CAN BE LEGITIMATE TARGETS IF HAMAS MILITANTS ARE IN THEM
JERUSALEM — A senior Israel Defense Forces official says the military will try not to strike zones in Gaza where humanitarian aid is being distributed, unless rockets are fired from the area.
“It’s a safe zone. We have a system which every time we decide that an area … is a safe zone, we declare no attack in this area. We won’t attack them,” he told a group of foreign journalists.
He added that the definition of what constitutes a “legitimate target” has changed, because the use of civilian infrastructure by Hamas “turns a private home into a legitimate target. And anyone who supports that home is a legitimate target.”
He acknowledged that the IDF has attacked houses where there are civilians living among militants.
— Julia Frankel in Jerusalem.
AT LEAST 12 PEOPLE DIE IN A HOUSE IN GAZA HIT BY AN ISRAELI STRIKE
DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — People searched for neighbors buried under the rubble of a house in central Gaza that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday. Witnesses said 12 people in one household died in the strike and five others were believed to be trapped.
People clambered on slabs of concrete and twisted metal looking for survivors. A woman in a bloodstained headscarf was helped out of the wreckage.
Men carried a body on a stretcher to an ambulance, and another man ran, carrying the limp body of a small child. Others helped lead away shocked-looking people covered in dust, including a boy with a bloody face.
The house was some 200 meters (yards) from the Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.
FIGHTING INTENSIFIES ALONG ISRAEL’S BORDER WITH LEBANON
BEIRUT — Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters exchanged fire Saturday in several areas along the Lebanon-Israel border as violence escalates over the Israel-Hamas war.
Tension has been picking up along the border over the past two weeks following the Oct. 7, attack by the Palestinian militant Hamas group on southern Israel that killed over 1,400 civilians and troops. Israel’s strikes on Gaza since then have killed over 4,000 Palestinians.
An Associated Press journalist in south Lebanon heard loud explosions along the border close to the Mediterranean coast.
The state-run National News Agency reported that Israeli shelling hit several villages, adding that a car was directly hit in the village of Houla. There was no immediate word on casualties.
An Israeli army spokesman said a group of gunmen fired a shell into Israel adding that an Israeli drone then targeted them. He added that another group of gunmen fired toward the Israeli town of Margaliot and a drone attacked them shortly afterward.
“Direct hits were scored in both strikes,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
BLINKEN WELCOMES AID BUT SAYS MORE IS NEEDED
WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has welcomed the first delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, but stressed that much more is needed.
“With this convoy, the international community is beginning to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that has left residents of Gaza without access to sufficient food, water, medical care, and safe shelter,” he said in a statement.
“We urge all parties to keep the Rafah crossing open to enable the continued movement of aid that is imperative to the welfare of the people of Gaza” he adding, stressing that Hamas must not steal the aid or prevent it getting to civilians who need it.
Blinken said the U.S, was still working with Israel and Egypt to arrange for dual U.S. citizens to be able to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing. Many Palestinians with foreign passports are gathered at the crossing, but have not yet been allowed to cross.
UNICEF SAYS INITIAL AID CONVOY WILL SAVE LIVES BUT IS INADEQUATE
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — A 20-truck U.N. convoy that entered Gaza from Egypt is carrying over 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the U.N. children’s agency — a day’s supply for 22,000 people, according to UNICEF.
“This first, limited water will save lives, but the needs are immediate and immense,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said.
The agency said it has supplies for up to 250,000 people at the Rafah crossing that can be brought into Gaza in a matter of hours.
TURKISH MINISTER WARNS OF INJUSTICE TOWARD PALESTINIANS
CAIRO — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Saturday that international support for Israel has created a growing injustice against the Palestinian people.
“Israel exploits the solidarity of some countries as an open check for unleashing blind rage on Palestinians, a rage that even targets mosques and hospitals,” he told a summit in Cairo.
“Unconditional military aid to Israel or coercing regional countries to unrealistic and unsustainable plans serves nothing but deepening occupation, because these policies omit, neglect and ignore a vital part of the equation: the Palestinians.”
He added: “By dehumanizing Palestinian lives, Israel aims to normalize Palestinian suffering. We say: never. Never for Palestinians, never for anybody else.”
IRAQI PRIME MINISTER WARNS OF EFFECT ON OIL IF CONFLICT SPREADS
CAIRO — Iraq’s prime minister warned Saturday that if the war between Israel and Hamas spreads to other countries in the region it will affect the flow of oil to international markets.
Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was apparently referring to Iran-backed militias that have started launching attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria and have warned they will step in if Hamas is threatened.
Al-Sudani told an international summit held in Egypt that Baghdad rejects the emptying of the Gaza Strip because “the Palestinians have no other place but their land.”
He called for an immediate cease-fire and an exchange of prisoners to end the current conflict.
Al-Sudani said that the situation would not have reached this point had U.N. Security Council resolutions been respected, an apparent reference to Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank.
Al-Sudani warned that the current conflict “will impact global security, escalate regional conflict, jeopardize energy supplies, exacerbate economic crises, and invite further conflicts.”
UN CHIEF: HAMAS ATTACK DOESN’T JUSTIFY ISRAEL’S ‘COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT’ OF PALESTINIANS
CAIRO — The United Nations’ chief says Hamas’ “reprehensible assault” on Israel “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
Secretary-General António Guterres called for protection of civilians and the sparing of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and U.N. premises, from the bombardment.
Speaking at a summit Egypt is hosting on the Israel-Gaza war, Guterres pointed to the “the wider context” of war, saying that the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “the only realistic foundation for a true peace and stability.”
“Israelis must see their legitimate needs for security materialized, and Palestinians must see their legitimate aspirations for an independent state realized,” he said.
He said the U.N. is working around the clock with all parties to ensure a sustainable delivery of aid to Gaza, following the crossing of a first 20-truck convoy on Saturday.
“But the people of Gaza need a commitment for much, much more — a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed,” he said.
EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT SAYS FORCING PALESTINIANS INTO EGYPT ISN’T THE ANSWER
CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has reiterated his government’s rejection of forcing Palestinians in Gaza to flee into his country’s Sinai Peninsula.
He said that the Palestinian cause won’t be settled through forcing the Palestinians to leave their homes, and “end the statehood dream.”
“The whole Egyptian people won’t accept the liquidation of the Palestinian cause … and will never happen on the expanse of Egypt,” el-Sissi said.
Speaking at a summit his government is hosting on the war Saturday, the Egyptian leader set out a roadmap to end the ongoing war which included ensuring the flow of aid to Gaza, negotiating a cease-fire, and embarking on peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian state based on the borders before the 1967 Mideast war.
“We are facing an unprecedented crisis that requires full attention to avert expanding the conflict,” he said.
