Essential supplies, aid being delivered to Gaza Strip
Aid deliveries began moving into the besieged Gaza Strip, two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel.
The Israeli military ramped up its reach Sunday, striking targets in Syria, the West Bank and Gaza amid growing concerns the war will spread more widely across the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned Israel and the U.S on Sunday that “if they do not immediately stop the crime against humanity and genocide in Gaza, anything is possible at any moment and the region will go out of control.”
The intensified military actions came as a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks made its way into Gaza from Egypt for a second day. But the U.N. warned the aid is about 4% of the daily average of imports into previous conflicts and a fraction of what is needed.
Israel has been pounding Gaza relentlessly since Hamas’ stunning, brutal attack Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,000 Israelis and saw the seizure of more than 200 hostages.
“Bombardments continue almost unabated as hostilities enter the 15th day in Gaza,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest situation report.
First humanitarian aid reaches Gaza: Convoy arrives after 2 weeks of Israel-Hamas war
Developments:
∎ The Rafah crossing from Egypt, which opened Saturday with the passage of 20 aid trucks, saw 17 more trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies enter Gaza on Sunday. The U.N. humanitarian affairs agency says it is “imperative” to increase the number to at least 100 trucks per day.
∎ Hezbollah’s deputy leader in Lebanon, Sheikh Naim Kassem, warned that Israel would pay a high price going forward if it commences a much-anticipated ground offensive in Gaza.
Syria said it was forced to shut down international airports in Damascus and Aleppo because of the Israeli strike. The Syrian Transport Ministry said landing strips at both airports were damaged by missiles and one civilian worker was killed and another wounded at Damascus International Airport. Israel has carried out several strikes in Syria since the war began, citing the need to prevent Hezbollah and other militant groups from bringing in arms from Iran, which also supports Hamas.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least five people there early Sunday, according to the local Health Ministry. Two were killed in an airstrike on a mosque in the town of Jenin, which the Israeli military said belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had carried out several attacks and were planning another one.
Palestinian militants have fired over 7,000 rockets into Israel since the war began, the Israel Defense Force says, and tens of thousands of Israeli’s have been forced to flee their homes. Hamas says it targeted Tel Aviv early Sunday.
The Israeli death toll has surpassed 1,400, most of the civilians killed in the first hours of Hamas’ bloody attack on border villages. At least 212 people were taken hostage; two Americans were released Friday in what Hamas described as a humanitarian gesture. The Gaza Health Ministry put the Palestinian death toll at 4,385; almost two-thirds of the fatalities are children and women. More than 1,000 people have been reported missing and are feared trapped or dead under the rubble.
Israel repeated its calls Sunday for Palestinians to leave northern Gaza. Israeli authorities say an estimated 700,000 have already fled, but hundreds of thousands remain. Fleeing to southern Gaza has provided little relief as Israeli airstrikes there have also battered cities and infrastructure. Gaza’s Housing Ministry says more than 160,000 homes and apartments − more than 40% of all dwellings − in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began two weeks ago.
The result is that about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been “internally displaced,” and 566,000 of them are staying in U.N. emergency shelters, the U.N. says.
Hamas – an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic resistance movement – was founded in 1987 by activists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997, and several other nations also consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections, and in 2007 the group violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which was controlled by the rival Fatah movement that still governs the West Bank. There have been no elections since. The group calls for the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state that would replace the current state of Israel and believes in the use of violence to carry out the destruction of Israel.
Hamas receives financial, material, and logistical support from Iran. So far, however, the U.S. and other nations have said there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in Hamas’ attack.
Contributing: The Associated Press
