The first trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip from Egypt on Saturday, on the fifteenth day of the war between Israel and Hamas in power in the Palestinian territory, noted an AFP correspondent. Twenty trucks loaded with aid crossed the Rafah terminal on the Egyptian border, opened exceptionally for this humanitarian operation, and entered Palestinian territory, according to an AFP correspondent on site.
Earlier, 36 semi-trailers were seen by an AFP journalist heading towards the Egyptian part of the terminal, loading the first cargoes there and transporting them to the Gaza Strip. Some 175 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid have been massed for days in Rafah waiting for the crossing point to open. Dozens of dual nationals, including entire families, residing in the Gaza Strip are waiting on the Palestinian side, hoping to be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip thanks to this opening of the crossing point, the first since the start of the war on October 7.
Information to remember:
- Humanitarian aid trucks begin passing through Egypt’s Rafah crossing on their way to Gaza
- Two American hostages were released Friday evening
- Around 200 hostages are still being held by Hamas
- Israel called on its citizens in Egypt and Jordan to leave these two countries “as quickly as possible”
- 17 employees of the UN refugee agency killed since the start of the war
The situation in Gaza is “catastrophic”, warn five UN agencies
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is now “catastrophic”, five UN agencies warned on Saturday, ensuring that hospitals are “overwhelmed” with wounded and that children are “dying at an alarming rate”. In a statement, the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Population Fund, recall that the The humanitarian situation in Gaza was already “desperate” before the conflict triggered by the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.
It is now catastrophic,” they continue, calling on the international community to “do more” to help the inhabitants of Gaza. “Time is running out before mortality rates skyrocket due to the outbreak diseases and lack of health care capacity,” they warn.
Israel wants to “increase strikes” on Gaza from this Saturday, says IDF
The Israeli army announced on Saturday evening that it intended to “increase” its bombings on Gaza, in preparation for the next phase of its offensive on the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas. “From today we will increase the strikes (…),” said General Daniel Hagari, IDF spokesperson.
“We are going to enter the next phases of the war in the conditions that will be optimal for us, not according to what we can be told,” he added during a press conference broadcast live on television. General Hagari also confirmed the presence of at least 210 hostages in the Gaza Strip, most of them Israelis.
Several Israeli army officials visited the troops on Saturday, emphasizing the preparation of the armed forces for a likely ground intervention in the Gaza Strip. “We are going to enter Gaza, we are going to do it for an operational purpose, to destroy the infrastructure and the Hamas terrorists, and we are going to do it in a professional manner,” declared the head of state during a troop review. Major Herzi Halevi.
US urges all parties to keep Rafah border crossing open
“We urge all parties to keep the Rafah crossing open so that much-needed aid can continue to be delivered to the well-being of the people of Gaza,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in charge of the Gaza Strip, said in a statement. returned from a regional tour in the Middle East and while President Joe Biden was in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.
“We must act now to end the nightmare,” says UN boss
“We must act now to put an end to the nightmare”, pleaded Saturday the head of the UN Antonio Guterres at the “Peace Summit” in Cairo, calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” on the 15th day of the war between Israel and Hamas in power in Gaza.
“The Gazans need much more, a massive delivery of aid is necessary” added the Secretary General of the United Nations, while only 20 trucks crossed from Egypt to Gaza besieged and shelled by Israel on Saturday morning, a a totally insufficient figure for the UN, which wants 100 trucks per day for the 2.4 million Gazans deprived of everything.
The UN also reiterated on Saturday its call for the “immediate and unconditional release” of all people kidnapped by Hamas, after the release the day before of the first two hostages, an American mother and her daughter, Judith and Natalie Raanan, via a mediation by Qatar, known to be close to Hamas.
Arrival of humanitarian aid in Gaza is an “important” step, says Olaf Scholz
It is good and important news that the first humanitarian aid is now being delivered to the people in Gaza. They need water, food and medicine – which will be provided.
The German government continues to work through all channels to alleviate the suffering in this conflict.
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) October 21, 2023
Two American hostages released
Hamas on Friday evening released two American women it had kidnapped on October 7 during its deadly attack on Israel, a glimmer of hope for the approximately 200 hostages still held in Gaza, where millions of Palestinians continue to await the arrival of urgent humanitarian aid. The two women, a mother and her daughter, were released after mediation by Qatar. US President Joe Biden said he was “overjoyed”. Judith and Natalia Raanan were taken care of at the border with Israel by the International Red Cross, as the war between the Jewish state and Hamas, triggered by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement, entered its third week on Saturday.
More than 1,400 people have been killed on Israeli territory by Hamas men since October 7, the majority of civilians mowed down by bullets, burned alive or dead of mutilation on the first day of the attack by terrorists from the Palestinian Islamist movement carried out in from Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. According to the Israeli army, around 1,500 Hamas terrorists were killed in the counter-offensive which allowed Israel to regain control of the attacked areas. In the Gaza Strip, 4,137 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in incessant bombings carried out in retaliation by the Israeli army, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Israel calls on its citizens to immediately leave Egypt and Jordan
Israel on Saturday called on its citizens in Egypt and Jordan to leave these two countries “as quickly as possible”, due to a “worsening of demonstrations against Israel”. A similar alert, level 4, the highest, had already been issued for Turkey and the recommendations were raised to level 3 for Morocco, advising Israelis not to travel there.
“Due to the continuation of the war, and a significant worsening in recent days of demonstrations against Israel (…) and demonstrations of hostility and violence against Israeli and Jewish symbols”, the entire ” Middle East and Arab countries” are not recommended for Israelis, warned the Israeli National Security Council in a statement.
17 employees of the UN refugee agency killed since the start of the war
At least 17 employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, its boss, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Saturday. .
“So far, the deaths in this brutal war of 17 of our colleagues have been confirmed. Unfortunately, the true figure is likely to be higher,” the UNRWA commissioner-general wrote in a statement.
Trucks blocked for several days
On the eleventh day of Israel’s complete siege, Gaza’s 2.4 million residents lack food, clean water, medicine and fuel. And this while around 175 humanitarian aid trucks remained stuck for several days on the Egyptian side of the border, at the Rafah terminal. “These trucks are not just trucks, they are a lifeline, they make the difference between life and death for many people in Gaza,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as he personally oversaw the operations in Rafah on Friday.
Israel authorized, at the request of the United States, the entry of aid via Rafah, the only exit from Gaza into the world that it does not control. On the condition that it only happens to “civilians”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also reported a threat of Israeli bombing against the Al-Quds hospital, in the north of the Gaza Strip, but declared itself “unable” to evacuate the establishment which houses some 500 patients in the area of the enclave hardest hit by the Israeli army. Israel, which has sworn to annihilate Hamas, is still preparing a ground offensive in Gaza.
“Summit for Peace”
To try to find a solution, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi is hosting a “peace summit” in Cairo on Saturday, attended by several senior Western and regional officials. For Joe Biden, Hamas started the war to torpedo the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight in the Middle East.
“One of the reasons they did what they did… why they went after Israel… is because I was about to sit down with the Saudis.” , declared the American president, specifying that Riyadh was considering in these discussions officially recognizing the Jewish state. Riyadh announced on October 14, a week after the start of the war, that it was suspending negotiations on this possible normalization.
Strikes in Lebanon
The United States has deployed two aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran or Lebanese Hezbollah, two Hamas allies, from getting involved in the conflict. At dawn on Saturday, the Israeli army announced that it had carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, in response to rocket and anti-tank missile fire towards Israel. In northern Israel, soldiers are deployed en masse near the border in the event of a second front against Hezbollah. Questioned by AFP at the bus station, a conscripted reservist, who requested anonymity, said he was “ready to fight” because “the Jews have no other country.”