After several days of intense efforts and desperate demands, the Egyptian Rafah border crossing has opened its doors for the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Exactly two weeks after the terrorist attack by the Islamist group Hamas in southern Israel that gave rise to the Israeli decision to launch a massive military offensive and hermetically block the Palestinian enclave, 20 trucks with water, food and medicine crossed the border crossing most cited in the world to help the Gazan population.
“The convoy of 20 trucks includes vital supplies provided by the Egyptian Red Crescent and the United Nations, which are approved to cross and be received by the Red Crescent, with the support of the United Nations,” said the Under-Secretary-General of Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths.
While the UN applauds the entry of humanitarian aid for the first time since the outbreak of the worst confrontation between Israel and Hamas, expressing its hope that these are only the first trucks in the framework of broader and continued assistance, in Gaza they warn that they are only “a drop of water in the sea” to the needs of the more than two million inhabitants. According to several journalists present at the border crossing, its opening was celebrated with songs. After the trucks passed, the Rafah terminal was closed.
Israel, which agreed with the US to allow humanitarian aid as long as it does not reach the hands of Hamas, has clarified that no fuel has entered. “By order of the Government, water, food and medicine have been transferred today from Egypt through the border crossing to the population in the south of the strip,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari, reiterating the call for the evacuation of Palestinians from the north. south of Gaza. According to his data, 750,000 inhabitants have already evacuated in an evacuation that has to do with a possible ground offensive in the northern part of the strip with special emphasis on Gaza City.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip,” added Israeli sources cited by various media in a country where many voices ask to condition humanitarian assistance to Gaza with the situation of those kidnapped in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who, according to updated data by the Israeli Army, there are 210.
“The aid convoy that is supposed to enter includes 20 trucks, including medicines, medical supplies and a limited amount of canned food,” the Hamas government in Gaza had announced earlier in the day. Hours later, he denounced that the aid that has entered Gaza “is limited and does not change the humanitarian catastrophe.”
Parallel to the first entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, bombings and projectiles continued to fall on both sides of a border that could be crossed at any time in the announced “extensive” Israeli ground offensive. Another border, that of Israel and Lebanon, registered new attacks by the Shiite group Hezbollah and military reprisals, heating up to the point that the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, admitted for the first time the extension of the war: “Hezbollah decided to intervene (in the fight with the Islamist group Hamas) and is paying a high price for it.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that health centers are “on the verge of collapse” and warned of shortages of energy, medicines, equipment and specialized personnel. “Right now we have more than 3,000 injured patients. In our hospital, on a normal day, our maximum capacity is 700 beds,” denounced surgeon Nedal Abed at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. His organization, Doctors Without Borders, warns that the aid arriving from Rafah “is totally insufficient compared to the desperate needs of the population that has been under complete siege.”
The risk to the lives of those kidnapped – a figure that the Army updated this Saturday – does not lead to reducing the fire force. According to Hamas, the bombings have caused 4,400 deaths and destroyed 5,500 buildings and more than 60 government offices in the last fifteen days.
At a tactical level, air raids have three objectives: destroy any infrastructure that serves Hamas, including command rooms, communication centers or arsenals, whether in tunnels or buildings, and reach the largest possible number of Hamas leaders and participants in the attack. of 7-O and finally prepare the ground offensive. At a strategic level, Israel’s two goals are to end the Hamas regime and armed wing in Gaza and, with unprecedented retaliation, restore the deterrence capacity, severely hit in regional eyes, to eliminate the motivation to attack it again.
With the release of American Jew Judith Raanan (59) and her daughter Natalie (17) who were kidnapped during their visit to Kibbutz Nahal Oz to celebrate grandmother’s birthday, Hamas not only agrees to the request of one of their godfathers Qatar, in turn under pressure from the US, but also trying to “improve their image” in the region by alleging “humanitarian reasons” after the massacres they carried out and filmed in the kibbutzim and above all to stop or at least delay the ground offensive.
“We are working with all those who advocate closing the case of the kidnapped civilians if adequate security conditions exist,” says Hamas, which is prioritizing its negotiations to release civilians with foreign nationality.
Hamas hopes for greater help from Hezbollah, which is currently launching attacks against Israel without crossing the line that leads to war. “As events develop and something arises that requires our intervention, we will do so,” warns the number two of the Lebanese group Nayem Qassem, presuming that without his actions three divisions of the Israeli Army would be deployed in Gaza and not on its border.
