Humanitarian aid begins to flow to the Gaza Strip

2023-10-21 10:29:00

Humanitarian aid begins to flow to the Palestinian territory of Gaza on Saturday, desperately awaited by its inhabitants who lack everything, the day after the release of two American women kidnapped during the bloody attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7.

Egyptian state television showed several trucks passing through the huge gate of the Rafah border post. Aid delivery has begun, a security source and an Egyptian Red Crescent official confirmed to AFP.

On the Palestinian side, 36 semi-trailers were seen by an AFP journalist heading towards the Egyptian part of the terminal, to load the first cargoes. Some 175 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid have been massed for days between Egypt and Gaza.

As the conflict enters its third week, this aid must make the difference “between life and death” for many Gazans, who lack water, food, medicine and electricity, the secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel by Hamas since October 7, the majority of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or died of mutilation on the first day of the fighters’ attack from Gaza, according to reports. Israeli authorities.

According to the Israeli army, around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in the counter-offensive which allowed Israel to regain control of the attacked areas.

In the Gaza Strip, 4,137 people, mostly civilians, were killed in incessant bombings carried out in retaliation by the Israeli army, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007.

At least 17 employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) are among the victims, its boss, Philippe Lazzarini, said on Saturday.

“Summit for Peace”

On Friday, the first two hostages, an American mother and daughter, Judith and Natalie Raanan, were released after mediation by Qatar, known to be close to Hamas. Hamas still holds more than 200 hostages.

Diplomatic efforts are also intensifying to try to avoid a regional conflagration. Egypt, a major regional power and the first Arab country to have recognized the State of Israel, is hosting a “peace summit” in Cairo on Saturday.

The head of the UN will participate, as well as European leaders Charles Michel and Josep Borrell alongside the King of Jordan Abdallah II, the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and numerous heads of diplomacy, but without an American leader.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that Hamas had started the war to torpedo the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a heavyweight in the Middle East. Riyadh announced on October 14 that it was suspending negotiations on this possible normalization.

The Palestinian Red Crescent also reported a threat of Israeli bombing against the Al-Quds hospital, in the north of the Gaza Strip where Israeli strikes are concentrated, but declared itself “unable” to evacuate the establishment which houses some 500 patients.

Anger is brewing in Arab and Muslim countries, where tens of thousands of people demonstrated on Friday in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Israel on Saturday called on its citizens in Egypt and Jordan to leave them “as quickly as possible” due to a “worsening of protests against Israel.”

“Second Nakba”

The tension in the occupied West Bank also claimed a new victim, killed overnight in clashes with the Israeli army near Jericho, bringing to 84 the number of Palestinian deaths in the West Bank since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health .

While Israel has massed troops around Gaza in preparation for a ground offensive, its Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, unfolded the operations scenario on Friday.

After the “military campaign” of airstrikes and “later maneuvers aimed at neutralizing Hamas terrorists and infrastructure”, there will be “low-intensity operations to eliminate the last pockets of resistance”, he said. he assures.

Ultimately, Israel is considering among the possible scenarios “handing over the keys” of the Gaza Strip to a third party which could be Egypt, without any guarantee that Cairo accepts this scenario postponed for decades, said a source in Israeli Foreign Ministry to AFP.

“I am afraid that the current destruction will follow a clear plan, that people will not find a place to live and that this will cause a second Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic),” worries Omar Ashour, a general in Gaza. retirement, in reference to the expulsion of approximately 760,000 Palestinians at the creation of Israel.

At least a million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN.

“Why bomb us civilians? Where will we go? Everything is gone,” asks Rami Abou Wazna, in the rubble of the town of Al-Zahra in Gaza. “But we will not leave our land,” he adds.

Strikes in Lebanon

The United States has deployed two aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran or Lebanese Hezbollah, two allies of Hamas, 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. According to military radio, an Israeli soldier was also killed Friday in an exchange of fire on the Lebanese border.

In this region of northern Israel, soldiers are deployed en masse. 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.”

21/10/2023 10:26:59 – Rafah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP