The Fate of the Gaza Strip: U.S. Security Forces in the midst of an Israeli-Jewish War-Breakout
“All of Gaza is waiting for the aid,” Wael Abu Omar, the spokesman for the Rafah crossing at Hamas’s interior ministry, said Thursday. “Of course we’ll let the aid through.”
The deal was announced by President Biden late Wednesday after a visit to Israel, during which he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and later spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The United Nations says there is only one border crossing left and that is Egypt’s border crossing with the Dominican Republic.
It is not clear if fuel is included in the shipment. With Gaza’s main power plant unable to operate, aid groups say fuel is badly needed to power desalination and wastewater plants, along with hospital generators.
“All of Gaza is waiting for the aid,” Wael Abu Omar, the spokesman for Hamas’s interior ministry, said Thursday. We will allow the aid to go through.
For 13 days, Israeli airstrikes have pummeled the Strip, leveling buildings and damaging infrastructure. About half of the territory’s population have left their homes to seek shelter in central or southern Gaza, says the United Nations. More than 4,800 buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed by Israeli warplanes.
Efforts have been made to get foreign nationals out of Gaza. E.U. officials said on Thursday that there had been no progress on that front. Many Americans, Canadians, Britons, and Australian citizens are in Gaza according to diplomats.
The cause of an explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City has led to renewed calls for a cease-fire. Reports of the death toll have varied; Gaza’s Ministry of Health says the blast killed more than 470 people, most of whom were patients at the hospital or people who had come to the hospital’s courtyard to seek a safe place to stay.
Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces overnight in the occupied West Bank after the explosion sparked protests across the region.
The UN Secretary-General and the Israeli-Israeli War in the Light of a Second U.N.-Supported Warfare
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an “immediate cease-fire” in order to facilitate Hamas’s release of the hostages and for Israel to allow unrestricted access to aid.
Guterres is expected to arrive in Cairo Thursday as part of a wave of diplomatic efforts to address the crisis; British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was set to arrive in Israel Thursday to meet Netanyahu, and French leader Emmanuel Macron was expected to follow in the coming days.
Israeli officials say 1,400 people have been killed in the conflict. Palestinian health officials say that the death toll in Gaza has reached 3,478, along with more than 60 dead in the West Bank.
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Source: Up First briefing: Gaza aid deal; preventing catalytic converter theft
Abood Okal: Getting Aid to Gaza During the War of the 1967-69 War and Observing the Fate of the Red Crescent
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On Thursday, aid workers and diplomats were working to get supplies into Gaza after President Biden said Israel would allow it.
The area around the crossing has repeatedly been bombed by Israel. The official said that the Egyptian workers were repairing the roads so that the large trucks loaded with aid would be able to pass.
The World Health Organization, the International Red Cross and other groups have sent equipment and supplies.
The UN secretary general and the humanitarian chief of the U.S. are in Cairo talking with Egyptian officials about how to get aid to Gaza.
The border crossing area is closed to non-Egyptian officials. The government in Cairo is very wary of any spillover from the conflict in Gaza as it is in a province where Egypt has battled militants for years.
Officials said Thursday that efforts were underway to address those concerns — most likely by having the Egyptian Red Crescent handle the aid on the Egyptian side and turn it over to the Palestinian Red Crescent on the Gaza side.
Another sticking point is Israel’s demand that the cargo be checked for weapons that Hamas could use for attacks. The American, U.N. and Egyptian officials are discussing who would carry out those cargo inspections, a person directly familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to speak about the delicate negotiations.
Abood Okal, a Palestinian American who has been stranded with his wife and one-year-old son, said in a WhatsApp message that he was “very concerned” that there had been no updates about an evacuation despite the talk of an agreement to allow aid into Gaza.
There was an explosion not far from the house where Mr. Okal was staying on Thursday. With no safe place to go, and no evacuation plan in sight, he wrote, “We are extremely afraid for our lives.”