Officials say a deal has been reached to open the Gaza aid corridor
The Gazan-Israel border crisis: Israel’s response to the Gaza attack on the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization
The director general of the World Health Organization said in a virtual news event that their trucks were ready to go. “We’re working with Egypt and Palestine Red Crescent societies to deliver our supplies into Gaza as soon as the border crossing is opened, hopefully tomorrow.”
On a brief trip to Israel this week, President Biden had worked to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to allow in aid.
TEL AVIV, Israel — With truckloads of aid waiting on one side and over two million Palestinians facing shortages of food, water and medicine on the other, all eyes Friday were watching the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to see if a deal to deliver relief would hold.
It is unclear if any fuel would be 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.
The ability of the United Nations to distribute aid to civilians without Hamas interference has been a concern for those trying to aid Gazans. If Hamas “doesn’t let it get through or just confiscates it, then it’s going to end,” Biden said of the aid.
As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza intensifies and Israel readies an expected ground invasion, scores of people have been waiting on the Gaza side for days in hopes of leaving.
Earlier discussions around opening the crossing had included efforts to get foreign nationals out of Gaza. E.U. officials said on Thursday that there had been no progress on that front. Roughly 400 Americans, 1200 Europeans, 300 Canadians and 200 British citizens are in Gaza, according to diplomats.
Calls for a cease-fire have mounted since an explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, the cause of which remains in dispute. The Ministry of Health says the blast killed more than 490 people, most of whom were patients at the hospital, which is why they had come to the courtyard to seek a safe place to stay.
The UN said there was an exchange of fire between Israeli police and Palestinians after an Israeli search-and-arrest operation in the camp. The IDF said “a number of terrorists” were killed in counterterrorism operations; Palestinian health officials reported at least 11 deaths. Israeli media report the death of one Israeli policeman.
The U.N. secretary-general called for a cease-fire in order to facilitate the release of the hostages and 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.
Up First Briefing: Gaza Aid Deal; Preventing Catalytic Converter Theft: A New Look at a Problem That Has Been Done
About 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the conflict, most of them on Oct. 7, Israeli officials say. The death toll in Gaza is 3,478 while more than 60 people have been killed in the West Bank.
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Source: Up First briefing: Gaza aid deal; preventing catalytic converter theft
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Source: Up First briefing: Gaza aid deal; preventing catalytic converter theft
The Gaza Conflict: Where is the aid? How does the Red Crescent, the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent are dealing with the stranded Palestinians?
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Diplomats and aid workers on Thursday were hammering out the logistics of getting food and medicine into Gaza a day after President Biden said Israel agreed to allow it.
The area around the crossing has repeatedly been bombed by Israel. An aid official briefed on the situation said that Egyptian workers were repairing roads on Thursday so the large trucks loaded with aid would be able to pass.
Major humanitarian groups including the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross also have sent equipment and supplies.
The U.N. Secretary General is in Cairo with some other people to discuss how to give aid to Gaza.
Non-Egyptian officials are no longer allowed into the border crossing area. It sits in a province where Egypt has fought militants for years, and the government in Cairo is wary of any spillover from the Gaza conflict.
The effort to address those concerns could be done by the Egyptian Red Crescent turning aid over to the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza.
Another sticking point is Israel’s insistence that the cargo should be checked for weapons that Hamas could use for attacks. The American, U.N. and Egyptian officials are in the middle of delicate negotiations regarding who will conduct those cargo inspections, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
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.
He said there was a blast near the house where he 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.”
Gazans Aren’t Safe: The Abuzayda-Yousef Family Tells Us That “We Are Not Safe”
Gaza has been under total blockade by Israel since the days after the Oct. 7 attacks, in which 1,400 people were killed, according to Israeli officials.
The people of Gaza are facing a humanitarian crisis. The territory’s main power plant, desalination plants, and wastewater facilities have been offline for a long time. Near-constant Israeli airstrikes have destroyed thousands of homes and killed more than 4,100 people, Palestinian officials say.
Like many people in Gaza, Abuzayda, along with her husband and 1-year-old son Yousef, moved south toward Rafah after Israel urged people to evacuate from the northern half of Gaza.
She said that a window broke as her son slept nearby, due to the building being struck. “I pulled him immediately, and I hugged him. He was freaking out. She said that he doesn’t know what’s going on. “We are not safe here.”
The tensions in occupied West Bank after a confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinians at a refugee camp near the border with Israel
In the occupied West Bank, tensions grew overnight after a confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinians at a refugee camp in Nur Shams, northeast of Tel Aviv near the territory’s border with Israel.
