GAZA: Israel said on Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the territory came one day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza’s struggling medical system.
The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as US President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.
There were conflicting claims of who was behind the explosion on Tuesday night, but protests flared quickly in the region as many Arab leaders said Israel was responsible.
Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying hundreds were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.
The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence.
Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October 7.
As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water.
The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the siege’s impact into sharp relief. Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to another Gaza hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, performed surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.
Biden said Egypt’s president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, “it will end”, he said. The aid will start moving on Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.
Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.