20 trucks haul much-needed aid into Gaza as Israel warns strikes to intensify in north
But aid workers say delivery of supplies insufficient to address humanitarian crisis
The latest:
- 20 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza on Saturday; more than 150 others are still waiting.
- Foreign passport holders in Gaza still not allowed through border crossing with Egypt.
- Jordan's kingtells Cairo summit that Israel's air campaign and siege of Gaza is a 'war crime.'
- Canada's foreign affairs minister, also at the summit,announces an additional $50 million in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
- Canada says deadly hospital blast likely caused by 'an errant rocket fired from Gaza.'
A long-awaited convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed into southern Gaza on Saturday for the first time since Israel began a devastating siege 12 days ago, as Israel's military pounded northern Gaza and warned it would increase its attacks.
U.S. President Joe Biden cheered the arrival of the aid after days of intense negotiations and said the United States was committed to ensuring more assistance would enter via southern Gaza Strip's Rafah border point with Egypt.
"We will continue to work with all parties to keep the Rafah crossing in operation," Biden said in a statement.
Twenty flatbed trucks, flying white flags and honking their horns, exited the crossing after checks and headed into Gaza's southern area, which includes the major towns of Rafah and Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of people made homeless by Israel's unrelenting air war are sheltering.
Israel's "total siege" of Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7 cross-border attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants, has left the enclave's 2.3 million people running out of food, water, medicineand fuel.
Palestinian officials were disappointed that fuel supplies were not included in the consignment of food, water and medical supplies and added that the aid was only a small fractionof what used to get into Gaza before the crisis.
"Excluding the fuel from the humanitarian aid means the lives of patients and injured will remain at risk. Gaza hospitals are running out of the basic requirements to pursue medical interventions," the Gaza Health Ministry said.
The United Nations said the convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received and distributed by the Palestinian Red Crescent, with the consent of Hamas, which rules Gaza.
UN said many more trucks needed
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the opening but echoed a warning from Israel that no aid should end up in Hamas'shands.
"We have been clear: Hamas must not interfere with the provision of this life-saving assistance," Blinken said in a statement.
UNofficials say at least 100 trucks daily are needed and that any aid operation must be sustainable at scale a tall order with Israel carrying out bombardments day and night.
Before the war, an average of about 450 aid trucks were arriving daily in Gaza.
Rear AdmiralDaniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said that "the humanitarian situation in Gaza is under control." He said aid would be delivered only to southern Gaza, where the army has ordered people to relocate, andno fuel would enter the territory.
Foreign passport holders still in limbo
Hundreds of foreign passport holders, meanwhile, continued their wait in hopes of crossingfrom Gaza to Egypt to escape the conflict.
Among them wasWesam Amer, a German citizen who lives in Khan Younis. He hopedto cross when the first aid convoy enteredGaza, but instead he found the border remained closed to civilians.
"This aid helps a lot of people," he toldCBCNews, adding that he wasfrustrated because he couldn't leave.
"It has never been too easy for us to go, to drive from home to the crossing. You know, there's a lot of risk, a lot of danger."
The opening for aid trucks came hours after Hamas released two Americans a mother and daughteron Friday, the first captives whose releasehas been confirmed by both sides after the militant group's Oct. 7 incursion into Israel.
Hamassaid it freed the pair for humanitarian reasonsas part of anagreement with Qatar, a Persian Gulf nation that has often served as a Mideast mediator.
Ground offensive expected
There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says would be aimed at rooting out Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years.
Israel kept up airstrikes on targets around Gaza in Saturday's early hours. Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson,warned that the strikes would intensify in the north, and he called on Gazans to move south to get out of harm's way.
"For your own safety move southward, we will continue to attack in the area of Gaza City and increase attacks," Hagari said in a briefing to Israeli reporters.
A groundoffensive 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. The Israeli military on Saturday said at least 307 of its soldiershave been killed since Oct. 7.
Palestinian militants have continued to launch unrelenting rocket attacks into Israel more than 6,900 projectiles since the start of the Hamas attacks, according to Israel.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Saturday from an airstrike in Gaza's Deir al-Balah neighbourhood, Hamas's Al Shehab news agency reported.
In the occupied West Bank,Israeli aircraft struck a compound beneath a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp early on Sunday that the military said was being used by Hamas andIslamic Jihad to organize attacks.Palestinian medics said at least one person was killed.
More than 4,300 people have been killed in Gaza, according to a figure released on Saturday by the territory's Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Hundreds were killedon Tuesday when a blast hit a Gaza City hospital, which Palestinian officials blamed on an Israeli strike. Israel denies striking the hospital, and the U.S. and France have said data they've gathered supports Israel's claim.
Canada announced on Saturday that an analysis by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicated "with a high degree of confidence" that Israel did not strike the hospital and that the "more likely scenario" was that the blast was caused by "an errant rocket fired from Gaza."
Cairo summit
Egyptopened a summit on the Gaza crisis on Saturday to try to head off a wider regional war, but assembled Middle Eastern and European leaders wereexpected to struggle to agree on a common position on the conflict.
UNSecretary General AntonioGuterres gave voice to growing international concern over civilians in Gaza, telling thesummit that Hamas's "reprehensible assault" on Israel"can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people."
EgyptianPresident Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for ensuring aid to Gaza, negotiating a ceasefire and resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which broke downyears ago. He said the conflict would never be resolved "at the expense of Egypt," referring to fears Israel may try to push Gaza's population into the Sinai Peninsula.
King Abdullah II of Jordan saidIsrael's attacks on Gaza were"a war crime" and slammed the international community's response.
"Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, electricity, and basic necessities would be condemned," he said.
At the Cairo summit, Canada is represented by International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen and Foreign Affairs Minister Mlanie Joly,who announced that the federal government would be providing $50 million in additional humanitarian aid to help Palestinians in Gaza and neighbouring areas.
The absence of a top official from Israel's main ally, the United States, and some other major Western leaders has cooled expectations for what the hastilyconvened event can achieve. Other key figures needed to negotiate a ceasefire, including representatives from Israel and Iran,arealso not attending the summit.
With files from The Associated Press and CBC News
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