Egypt to open Gaza border crossing for up to 20 aid trucks

 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

"He agreed to... let up to 20 trucks through to begin with," Biden told reporters after calling Sisi from Air Force One while returning from a visit to Israel, where he was showing solidarity over the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The shipment would likely not cross until Friday, as the road at the crossing needed repairs, Biden said.

"They're going to patch the road. They have to fill in potholes to get these trucks through.  And that's going to occur -- they expect it’ll take about eight hours tomorrow," he said.

The first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which controls Gaza, to benefit, the US president said.

The United Nations is set to distribute aid on the Gaza side of the border.

"If Hamas confiscates it or doesn't let it get through or just confiscates it, then it's going to end, because we’re not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if they’re going to be confiscating it. That's the commitment that I've made," Biden said.

He added that the 20 trucks represented a "first tranche," but "150 or something" trucks are waiting in total. Whether the rest are allowed to cross will depend on "how it goes."

Biden had been due to meet Sisi on Wednesday at a four-way summit in Jordan, but it was canceled after a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital that caused anger across the Arab world.

He said he had instead talked to Sisi from Air Force One for about half an hour.

"The bottom line is that he (Sisi) deserves some real credit because he was very accommodating," the US president added.

Biden characterized his trip to the war zone as a success and said that while expressing US support for ally Israel, he was "very blunt with the Israelis" on the need to allow aid into Gaza.

"If you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it. Period. And if you don't, you're going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that," he said.

Asked by journalists about reports that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah against Israel, Biden said this was "not true."

However, he said that "our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are" in the event of a Hezbollah attack.

- 'Bloodshed must stop' -

The horror of the hospital deaths overshadowed Biden's high-stakes regional visit, with Jordan cancelling a summit between King Abdullah II, Biden, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Israel's military campaign to destroy Hamas, which is holding 199 hostages in the besieged territory, has now claimed the lives of 3,478 people, according to health officials.

Arab countries have almost universally blamed Israel for the hospital strike, either directly or through state media -- including Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the region's few countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation -- a 57-member bloc of Muslim-majority countries -- denounced Israel's backers for granting the country "impunity" in its war with Gaza.

In the besieged enclave, the hospital blast brought new horrors after 12 days of sustained bombardment that Israel says targets Hamas and which has destroyed entire city blocks.

More than a million people have been displaced ahead of an anticipated Israeli ground offensive, according to the UN.

Overnight, after the explosion, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in blood-stained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby the Al-Shifa hospital, where bereaved relatives tried to identify loved ones.

"As I entered the hospital, I heard the explosion. I saw a massive fire," said Gaza resident Adnan al-Naqa. "The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people."

"Hospitals are not a target," said Ghassan Abu Sittah of the charity Doctors Without Borders, who was inside the building when the compound was hit. "This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough."

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said hundreds died including "internally displaced people seeking safe shelter".

Hamas has dismissed Israel's claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its "outrageous lies do not deceive anyone".

It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.

"The continued endorsement of the Zionist narrative by the US administration makes it complicit in the occupation's massacres and the Baptist hospital massacre in Gaza," it said.

- 'Spiralling out of control'  -

Entire Gaza neighbourhoods have been razed and survivors are left with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel, unable to flee the 40-kilometre (25-mile) long strip blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007.

"The situation in Gaza is spiralling out of control," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"We need violence on all sides to stop."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" and warned Israel against "the collective punishment of the Palestinian people".

But in New York, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a "humanitarian pause", saying it did not respect Israel's right to defend itself.

On aid, Biden said he was encouraging Netanyahu to ensure "life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent and caught in the middle of this".

Inside Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians who hold US or other foreign passports have desperately hoped to escape through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only way in or out of Gaza not controlled by Israel.

The Rafah crossing has remained closed during the war as Israel has struck the Palestinian side, preventing the delivery of aid piled up in long convoys of trucks waiting in Egypt.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths estimated that about 100 trucks per day were needed to meet demand in Gaza.

Egypt's Sisi has denied that his country was keeping the border closed and warned against any potential Israeli plan to permanently drive Palestinians out of Gaza.

Such a "forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt" would set a precedent for also pushing West Bank Palestinians into Jordan, Sisi said.

The effect, the Egyptian president warned, would be "eradicating the Palestinian cause" and making a future Palestinian state "impossible".

Turkey to declare 3 days' mourning

Turkey will declare three days' mourning over a deadly strike on a hospital in war-torn Gaza that killed hundreds, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Erdogan, a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause, has accused Israel of "striking a hospital sheltering women, children and innocent civilians" and urged the world to stop the tragedy in Gaza.

Israel and Palestinian militants have accused each other of the attack.

"Out of respect for the thousands of martyrs, most of whom are children and innocent civilians, three days of national mourning have been declared in our country", said Erdogan in a message on X, formerly Twitter.

"We, Turkey, feel in our hearts the deep pain felt by our Palestinian brothers."

Ozlem Zengin of Erdogan's ruling AKP party said that the national mourning would be declared under a presidential decree.

"It is important to show at what level we perceive this issue," she was quoted as saying by the private NTV broadcaster.

Erdogan on Tuesday condemned the strike as "the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values", in a message on social media.

AKP party spokesman Omer Celik said Turkey's declaration of three days' mourning would a show of solidarity with the innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

"We share the same pain, the same sorrow," he told reporters at a weekly press conference. He accused Israel of the strike on the hospital, he said.

Large crowds joined demonstrations in Istanbul and the Turkish capital Ankara late Tuesday, shouting pro-Palestinian chants.

Israel has told its citizens to leave Turkey "as soon as possible" amid fears of reprisal attacks.

UK's Sunak heads to Israel

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will travel to Israel on Thursday before heading to other countries in the region in an effort to deescalate the Israel-Gaza conflict, his office has said.

"The attack on Al Ahli Hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict," Sunak said in a statement.

"I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort."

Sunak will stress the international community must "not let Hamas' barbaric terrorism and disregard for human life become a catalyst for further escalation of conflict in the region", the statement said.

Expected in Israel early on Thursday morning, Sunak is due to meet his counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

He is also expected to insist that humanitarian aid, which London recently announced would be increased for the Palestinians, be allowed to arrive at a time when Israel has authorised the entry of aid into Gaza from Egypt, and that Britons stranded in Gaza be allowed to leave.

Alongside the British prime minister's trip, his Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is due to visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar "in the coming days", according to Downing Street.

London has pledged its support for Israel following the bloody attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people, and has announced that the UK's humanitarian aid to the Palestinians will be increased by a third -- an extra £10 million pounds ($12 million).

Israel is relentlessly bombing the small, crowded territory of Gaza, where more than 3,400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinian civilians, according to the local authorities.

Israel strikes Syrian govt position in south

The Israeli government struck a Syrian military position in the war-torn country's south, a war monitoring NGO said on Wednesday.

"Sounds of explosions rang out in the province of Quneitra after an Israeli strike against a Syrian army position," said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a vast network of sources in the country.

The sound of explosions also rang out in the Golan Heights, the NGO said, without specifying their source.

The strike in Quneitra caused material damage, the organisation said, and has not yet been mentioned by official Syrian media.

The raid coincides with an announcement by the Israeli army on X, formerly Twitter, of strikes against "terrorist positions" of Hezbollah -- an ally of the Syrian regime and enemy of Israel -- in Lebanon, which borders Golan.

Since the start of the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas militants on Israel on October 7, exchanges of fire between Hezbollah militants and the Israeli army have likewise increased around the Israel-Lebanon border area.

Clashes there have left at least 18 people dead on the Lebanese side.

Most of the dead have been combatants, including 10 Hezbollah fighters, but they also include a Reuters journalist and two civilians.

On the Israeli side, at least three people have been killed.