Humanitarian aid enters Gaza as border opens

THE border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off in the wake of Hamas’ bloody rampage two weeks ago.

Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Hospitals say they are running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide power blackout. Israel is still launching waves of airstrikes across Gaza as Palestinian militants fire rocket barrages into Israel.

The opening came after more than a week of high-level diplomacy by various mediators, including visits to the region by U.S. President Joe Biden and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Israel had insisted that nothing would enter Gaza until some 200 people captured by Hamas were freed, and the Palestinian side of the crossing had been shut down by Israeli airstrikes, said the report from the CBS News.

Egypt’s state-owned Al-Qahera news, which is close to security agencies, said just 20 trucks had crossed into Gaza on Saturday, out of more than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid that have been positioned near the crossing for days. The trucks were carrying 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the United Nations children’s agency — enough for 22,000 people for a single day, it said. 

“This first, limited water will save lives, but the needs are immediate and immense,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

Hundreds of foreign passport holders also waited to cross from Gaza to Egypt to escape the conflict. 

The death toll has now reached 4,385 — including 1,756 children and 967 women — in addition to 13,561 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza during a news conference on Saturday. Seventy percent of the casualties are women, children and elderly people, the ministry spokesperson said.

U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement on Saturday supporting the arrival of relief, saying “We urge all parties to keep the Rafah crossing open to enable the continued movement of aid that is imperative to the welfare of the people of Gaza.”

“The United States welcomes the delivery of a 20-truck convoy carrying much needed humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, the first since Hamas’s horrific October 7 terrorist attack on Israel,” the statement read. “We thank our partners in Egypt and Israel, and the United Nations, for facilitating the safe passage of these shipments through the Rafah border crossing. With this convoy, the international community is beginning to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that has left residents of Gaza without access to sufficient food, water, medical care, and safe shelter.”