Basic supplies and aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip
Aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip began two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel.
No world leader has announced his support for Israel in its war against Hamas more forcefully than President Joe Biden, but the Biden administration is also committed to supporting civilians in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military increased its reach on Sunday, attacking targets in Syria, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as fears grew that the war could spread to the Middle East. Biden has warned Iran and other enemies of Israel in the region to stay out of the war.
The increased military action came as a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks that was scheduled to travel from Egypt to Gaza for a second day on Sunday never arrived, a U.N. aid agency said.
“We had hoped for more today,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told Sky News on Sunday. “I’m not sure we’ll make it. We are currently in negotiations with the Israelis and the Egyptians, with a lot of help from the United States, by the way.”
Since Hamas’s stunning, brutal attack on October 7, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis and seized more than 200 hostages, Israel has relentlessly attacked the Gaza Strip. Israel’s overnight airstrikes late Saturday and early Sunday alone killed at least 55 people and destroyed 30 houses, the Hamas government press office said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned Israel and the US on Sunday: “If they do not immediately stop the crime against humanity and genocide in Gaza, anything is possible at any time and the region will spiral out of control.”
“Bombardments continue almost unabated as hostilities in Gaza enter their 15th day,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest situation report.
First humanitarian aid reaches Gaza: The convoy arrives after two weeks of the Israel-Hamas war
Developments:
∎ Thousands of pregnant women in the Gaza Strip who could give birth within weeks are in grave danger because they cannot reach a medical facility to give birth, Doctors Without Borders warned.
∎ Hezbollah’s deputy leader in Lebanon, Sheikh Naim Qassem, warned that Israel would pay a heavy price if it launched a much-anticipated ground offensive in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes have killed Muhamad Qatmash, second in command of Hamas’s artillery unit in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces announced. IDF said Qatmash was responsible for artillery operations in Hamas’s Central Brigade in the Gaza Strip and played a significant role in planning and carrying out attacks on Israel. According to the IDF, a Hamas weapons factory and military command center were also attacked.
Reports that 17 more trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday at the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, which opened on Saturday with the passage of 20 aid trucks, were false, the UN humanitarian agency said.
“So far there is no convoy,” said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The agency also said it was “imperative” to increase the number to at least 100 trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies daily.
An Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has left food, water, medicine and electricity unavailable since the war began. The agency warned that even the help that arrived Saturday was only a small fraction of daily needs.
A Hamas field manual and other documents found in the days after the Oct. 7 attack reveal the group’s military strength and included instructions on techniques such as bloody, close-range killing, the Washington Post said. The Post said it obtained the field manual found on the body of a Hamas fighter, which lists instructions on how to handle weapons and highlights vulnerabilities in Israeli military equipment. It also includes instructions for “shock troops” on the best places to stab victims. The “neck in the clavicle area,” the “spine,” and the “armpits” are on this list, the post says.
Syria said it was forced to close international airports in Damascus and Aleppo due to the Israeli attack. Syria’s transport ministry said runways at both airports were damaged by rockets and a civilian worker was killed and another injured at Damascus International Airport. Israel has carried out several attacks in Syria since the war began, citing the need to stop Hezbollah and other militant groups from importing weapons from Iran, which also supports Hamas.
Israeli forces killed at least five people in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early Sunday, according to the local health ministry. Two were killed in an airstrike on a mosque in the city of Jenin that the Israeli military said belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had carried out several attacks and were planning another.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, Palestinian militants have fired over 7,000 rockets into Israel since the war began and tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes. Hamas said it targeted Tel Aviv early Sunday.
The Israeli death toll has passed 1,400, with most civilians killed in the first hours of Hamas’s bloody assault on border villages. At least 212 people were taken hostage; Two Americans were released Friday in what Hamas called a humanitarian gesture. Gaza’s 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 to be trapped or dead under the rubble.
Israel on Sunday repeated its calls for Palestinians to leave the northern Gaza Strip. According to Israeli authorities, an estimated 700,000 have already fled, but hundreds of thousands remain. The flight to the south of the Gaza Strip has brought little relief, as Israeli airstrikes have also affected cities and infrastructure there. According to Gaza’s Housing Ministry, more than 160,000 houses and apartments – more than 40% of all housing – have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza since the war began two weeks ago.
The result is that about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are “internally displaced” and 566,000 of them are housed in UN shelters, the UN said.
Hamas – an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Resistance Movement – was founded in 1987 by activists with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The State Department designated Hamas a terrorist organization 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, which still rules the West Bank. There have been no elections since then. 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 force to destroy Israel.
Hamas receives financial, material and logistical support from Iran. However, so far the United States and other nations have said there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the Hamas attack.
Contribution: The Associated Press