Gaza deepening humanitarian crisis

Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and water have been stranded on a scorching Egyptian road, some for nearly two months, awaiting permission to deliver the much needed humanitarian supplies to war-torn Gaza.

About 50 kilometers from the Gaza border, trucks carrying flour, water and other aid line a dusty road in both directions. The drivers say they have been waiting for several weeks in the searing Egyptian summer heat.

The standstill is exacerbating Gaza's dire humanitarian crisis after nine months of war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. Aid groups warn there is a high risk of famine across the besieged coastal territory.

The truck drivers, parked on the outskirts of the Egyptian city of al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, say they have been unable to deliver humanitarian supplies ever since Israel expanded its offensive on the Gaza-Egypt border in May.

Some food has had to be discarded, they said.

"I swear to God, before this load, we came here and stood for more than 50 days and eventually the load was returned because it had expired," said truck driver Elsayed el-Nabawi.

"We had to turn around and return it. We loaded another batch, and here we are standing again and only God knows if this load will make it before it expires or what will happen to it."

The Israeli military started its assault on the southern Gazan city of Rafah in May. The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a lifeline to the outside world for Gazans, allowing the delivery of aid and the evacuation of patients, has been shut since then.

Talks involving Egypt, the United States and Israel have failed to reopen Rafah, where Egypt wants a Palestinian presence restored on the Gazan side of the border. Israeli flags now fly over Gazan buildings destroyed along the border with Egypt.

"We've been stranded here for over a month waiting to deliver this load. We've waiting for our turn but nothing yet" said Ahmed Kamel, another of the truck drivers, who sit by their vehicles drinking tea and smoking cigarettes.

"We don't know our fate - when we will be able to enter? Today? Tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? Only God knows. Will the stuff we're carrying hold up or most of it will go bad?"

Aid and commercial supplies have still entered Gaza through other land border crossings, through air drops and by sea, but aid groups and Western diplomats say the supplies are far below needs. The drivers say they are waiting for Israeli permission.

 

Israel allows 20 aid trucks, drops 12,000 bombs

After two weeks of relentless bombing, Israel temporarily opened the Rafah border crossing, the only port connecting Gaza to Egypt which is coordinating international life-saving humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. 

Israel had bombarded the crossing in the early hours of its shelling campaign against the Gaza Strip, shutting down operations at the egress for travel and trade.

Since October 07, Israel stubbornly rejected all calls for reopening the Rafah crossing, while deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis by cutting off the flow of water, fuel, food, and electricity into the besieged enclave. 

To make things even worse, Israel began intently bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and other civilian properties which served as a shelter for civilians fleeing heavy bombardment.

On October 17, Israel committed a heinous crime that shocked the world by bombing a Christian hospital – Al Ahli- which resulted in the killing of hundreds of civilians, mostly injured and patients.

The magnitude of the crime was so abhorrent that the Israeli authorities quickly walked back their statements confirming their bombardment of the hospital and ultimately blamed the targeting of the hospital on a Palestinian resistance group misfired rocket. 

Even worse, the Biden administration appeared to be rubber stamping the Israeli narrative, saying that the war crime was committed by the other team.

President Biden had visited Israel in a bid to show solidarity with the Israeli leadership, which is suffering from a historic lack of self-confidence as a result of the October 07 attack by the Palestinian resistance groups on Israeli targets. 

In order to vent their anger, the Israeli authorities intensified their brutal campaign against the civilians in Gaza, producing damning evidence of committing war crimes against the Palestinian people, according to Amnesty International. 

“As Israeli forces continue to intensify their cataclysmic assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Amnesty International has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes,” the human rights organization said in a statement on Friday. 

“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives. They have pulverized street after street of residential buildings killing civilians on a mass scale and destroying essential infrastructure, while new restrictions mean Gaza is fast running out of water, medicine, fuel and electricity. Testimonies from eyewitness and survivors highlighted, again and again, how Israeli attacks decimated Palestinian families, causing such destruction that surviving relatives have little but rubble to remember their loved ones by,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

 Callamard said, “Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” 

These crimes were the result of Israel dropping thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip in a matter of two weeks. The Israeli military has said just in the first six days of their aggression, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza. Estimates put that number at more than 8,000 now, which is more than the bombs the US dropped on Afghanistan in a year, according to US Congresswomen Ilhan Omar. 

The Washington Post, citing Marc Garlasco, a military adviser at the Dutch organization PAX for Peace, reported that Israel is dropping in less than a week what the US was dropping in Afghanistan in a year, in a much smaller, much more densely populated area, where mistakes are going to be magnified.”

Garlasco, who is also a former UN war crimes investigator in Libya, told the daily, citing records from the US Air Force Central Command, that the highest number of bombs dropped in a year for the war in Afghanistan was just over 7,423.

According to the UN, during the entire war in Libya, NATO reported dropping more than 7,600 bombs and missiles from aircraft, the daily reported, according to Anadolu Agency. 

Despite Israeli continued atrocities, humanitarian aid started flowing into Gaza Saturday in very small quantities, with some describing it as a drop in an ocean of human suffering. 

 

Biden to visit Israel to show support for its war on Hamas

US President Joe Biden will make high stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday to show support for its war on Hamas, after Washington said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to let humanitarian aid reach besieged Gazans.

Trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt, the only access point to the enclave outside of Israel's control, though it was not certain whether they would be able to cross.

Some 160 trucks had set off towards the border from the nearby Egyptian town of Al-Arish, where they have been backed up waiting while diplomats tried for days to open the route.

Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that controls Gaza after Hamas gunmen killed 1,300 people, mainly civilians, during a rampage through southern Israeli towns on October 07, the deadliest single day in Israel's 75-year history.

Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip with air strikes that have killed more than 2,800 Palestinians, a quarter of them children, and driven around half of the 2.3 million Gazans from their homes. It has imposed a total blockade on the enclave, blocking food, fuel and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden's planned visit at the end of hours of talks with Netanyahu, in which he said Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He gave no details.

"The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs," Blinken said.

Biden would also hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas", he added.

Washington is also trying to rally Arab states to help head off a wider regional war, after Iran pledged pre-emptive action from the resistance front of its allies which include the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.

After visiting Israel, Biden is expected to travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority which is a rival of Hamas and has limited self rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.