Aid convoy enters Gaza, Israel steps up airstrikes

US President Joe Biden welcomed the arrival of aid after days of tense negotiations and said the US was committed to ensuring more aid would flow through the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip with Egypt.

The convoy has entered Gaza, Israel has reinforced its air defenses. — The first aid convoy to Gaza since the conflict began crossed the border with Egypt on October 21, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Twenty trucks flying white flags and honking their horns left the crossing after being checked and headed into southern Gaza, including the major towns of Rafah and Khan Younis, where hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless by relentless Israeli air strikes.

Palestinian officials were frustrated that fuel supplies were not included in the shipment of food, water and medical supplies, adding that the aid was only 3% of the amount used to enter Gaza before the crisis.

“The removal of fuel from humanitarian aid means that the lives of patients and the injured will remain at risk. Gaza hospitals are running out of basic requirements to carry out medical interventions,” the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The United Nations said the aid convoy would be received and distributed by the Palestinian Red Crescent with the consent of Hamas, which rules Gaza.

UN officials say at least 100 trucks are needed a day and any aid operation would have to be sustained on a large scale – a tall order given Israel’s round-the-clock bombardment. Before the conflict, an average of 450 aid trucks arrived in Gaza every day.

Israel has massed tanks and troops near the fenced border around the narrow coastal enclave in preparation for a planned ground offensive to destroy Hamas, after several inconclusive wars since Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007.

In a video released by the Israeli military, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi told the country's military: "We will enter the Gaza Strip... to destroy Hamas members and Hamas infrastructure."

The Israeli military has conducted live-fire exercises "in preparation for the next phase of the war," video released by the Israeli military on Saturday showed.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its warplanes struck "a large number of Hamas terrorist targets throughout" Gaza, including command centers and fighting positions inside high-rise buildings, causing numerous casualties.

In response, Hamas said it fired rockets toward Israel's largest city Tel Aviv on Saturday. The Israeli military later reported a new barrage of rockets from Gaza targeting southern Israeli border communities before dawn Sunday.

Hoang Anh (according to Reuters, AJ, AP)

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