Aid enters Gaza for first time; Israel says leave Egypt, Jordan
Live television footage has showed some aid trucks crossing the border between Gaza and Egypt for the first time since the Hamas attack.
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A convoy of 20 trucks carrying tons of aid has made its way into the Gaza Strip.
Footage showed the vehicles passing through the Rafah Border Crossing with Egypt at 6.30pm Australian time on Saturday.
The trucks were carrying vital food and medical supplies to the region that has had more than half its population displaced in the past fortnight.
The Israeli military had given assurances that the crossing would not be attacked while aid was taken in.
The crossing is the only lifeline into the Gaza Strip, with Israel shutting two other entry points on its borders.
The US Embassy in Jerusalem said: “We have received info that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will open on Saturday, 21 October, 10:00am local time (6pm Australian time).
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“If the border is opened, we do not know how long it will remain open for foreign citizens to depart Gaza.”
Israel’s National Security Agency, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry has also warned Israelis of travelling to Egypt (including the Sinai Peninsula) and Jordan, telling its citizens leave.
Israelis were also recommended to avoid staying in all Middle East/Arab countries, including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.
It comes as rocket sirens were heard in Ashdod.
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HAMAS ATTACK AIMED AT STOPPING SAUDI DEAL
United States president Joe Biden has claimed Hamas’ deadly terror attack was an attempt to stop Saudi Arabia making a peace deal with Israel.
There was hope in the weeks before the attack on a music festival near Israel’s border with Gaza of a “normalisation” agreement between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
“One of the reasons why they acted like they did … why Hamas moved on Israel… (was) because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden told guests at a campaign fundraiser.
“The Saudis wanted to recognise Israel … unite the Middle East.”
Any deal between oil producing Saudi Arabia, an Islamic country, and Tel Aviv would have been one of the biggest shifts in Middle Eastern politics since Israel was created in 1948.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen had said in late September that “the gaps can be bridged” between his nation and Saudi Arabia.
He claimed that the deal would be agreed within the early part of 2024.
That would have been a diplomatic coup, adding to 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw Islamic nations the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain recognise Israel.
Any hopes of that agreement were washed away when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, prompting a bombing wave in retaliation.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had told Fox News in September that “every day we get closer” to a deal.
He wanted the United States, which was brokering the deal, to allow Saudi Arabia to buy more weapons.
The Crown Prince, who had denied involvement in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, also wanted the creation of a Palestinian state.
The explosion at the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City has complicated Saudi Arabia’s position.
Israel claims the hospital destruction was caused by a Hamas rocket misfiring, while the terrorist group blames Tel Aviv and has the sympathy of other Arab states.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been in talks with Crown Prince bin Salman this week.
He also said he would stand by Israel in its “darkest hour”, posing for photographs with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
World leaders have been holding desperate talks to prevent the conflict spreading beyond the Gaza Strip.
Qatar now becomes a key player in attempts to solve the dispute.
ISRAEL STRIKES HAMAS AGAIN
It comes as a senior Hamas engineer has been struck along with several Hamas command centres and underground infrastructure, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has said.
Engineer Mahmoud Sabih headed a unit that developed weapons for Hamas, including drones, and had “exchanged knowledge with other terror groups throughout the Middle East,” the IDF said.
The strike was in response to Hamas’ continued firing of rockets on Israel’s south, most of which were intercepted by the IDF.
The death toll from the strike was at least 29, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior in Gaza said on Saturday.
The ministry said at least 14 people were killed in airstrikes on Jabalia in northern Gaza.
One rocket directly hit a home, causing damage, and another hit a number of cars, the Fire and Rescue Service said.
The Israel Defense Forces said it struck multiple Hamas command centres and underground infrastructure throughout the day.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant made an evening visit to an IDF assembly area near the border with Gaza and “closely monitored the readiness of the forces for the expansion of the campaign,” his office said.
About 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza, and more than 544,000 are sheltering in 147 UN-designated emergency shelters that are in “increasingly dire conditions,” the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has confirmed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has acknowledged the emotional toll that the war between Israel and Hamas has taken on US diplomats amid media reports of internal dissent over Washington’s handling of the conflict.
Blinken sent a letter to all State Department employees noting the “challenging” circumstances affecting the US diplomatic corps, some of whom feel the “ripples of fear and bigotry” the conflict has generated.
THOUSANDS MARCH IN AUSSIE PROTESTS
Thousands of protesters have gathered at Sydney Town Hall in support of Palestine with plans to march through the city.
Just before 1pm the crowd spilled onto George St chanting “free Palestine” and “shame Albanese”.
Protesters said they were denouncing the “genocide” of Palestinians under Israeli “occupation”.
US, EUROPE PUSH ISRAEL TO DELAY
The US and several European governments are quietly pushing Israel to hold off on launching a ground invasion of Gaza, fearing the incursion could all but scuttle efforts to secure additional hostage releases for the foreseeable future, a senior diplomatic official has said.
The push to delay comes after the release of US hostages by Hamas from Gaza.
The Western governments currently pressuring Israel each have citizens among those unaccounted for and believe that the more time that passes, the harder it will be to secure the hostages’ release, the official says.
The governments recognize that a ground invasion is very likely and are not telling Israel not to launch one at all, rather hold off to try and see if additional diplomatic efforts can succeed, says the senior diplomatic official.
Leaders are also “concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
“It is crucial to prevent regional escalation. We call for the immediate release of all hostages and emphasize our shared view that a two-state solution remains the viable path to lasting peace,” a joint statement said after talks between the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the US President Joe Biden.
TENSIONS FLARE ON WEST BANK
Tensions flared in the West Bank as angry and sometimes armed confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces took place across the occupied territory after a deadly raid by Israeli troops on Friday.
Conditions in Gaza are deteriorating as Israeli strikes pound the Palestinian enclave and aid agencies warn hospitals are nearly out of fuel.
As a result, protests against the siege of Gaza are taking place in cities across the Middle East.
Humanitarian aid that has been stuck in Egypt should reach Gaza within “24-48 hours,” US President Joe Biden said Friday. The UN has said the trucks waiting at the southern Rafah crossing will be the “difference between life and death.”
The Palestinian health ministry says 13 people, including five children, were killed after an Israeli assault on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank.
At least 81 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict erupted on 7 October, according to figures from the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.
One member of the Israeli security forces has also been killed in the territory.
IDF VOWS TO END HAMAS
An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman has said “there’s going to be no break” in his country’s effort to destroy Hamas.
The statement appears to be an open rejection of moves by US and European governments to seek a delay in any ground invasion of Gaza.
Major Dorion Spielman, speaking on CNN following the release of the two American hostages on Friday, said the move to release hostages was “typical” of Hamas.
DAD’S RELIEF AS TWO US HOSTAGES RELEASED
The father of an American hostage released in Israel says it was “the best day of his life” as he plans to celebrate her 18th birthday in Chicago next week.
Uri Raanan’s daughter Natalie, and ex-wife Judith, were the first Hamas hostages released two weeks after the terror attack on Israel’s border with Gaza.
They were among 200 people taken in the attack which killed more than 1400 Israelis and provoked a bombing campaign on the Gaza strip.
IDF STRIKES HEZBOLLAH
The Israeli Defense Force has struck a Hezbollah post in retaliation for a strike on a northern Israeli area on Friday.
In addition to the targeting of the terrorist cell, the IDF said it intercepted a separate target that was headed toward Israeli airspace from Lebanon before crossing over.
The IDF struck a Hezbollah post—operated by a terrorist cell— a short while ago.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 20, 2023
In addition, a target—headed toward Israeli airspace from Lebanon—was intercepted before crossing over. pic.twitter.com/lKajXiQ7wg
SCHOOLS, HOSPITAL ORDERED TO EVACUATE
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it received a warning from Israel to evacuate five schools “as fast as possible”.
All of the schools are in Gaza City, close to the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in northern Gaza, AFP reported.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it received a warning from Israel to evacuate five schools in Gaza “as fast as possible”.
A statement from UNRWA said:
“We did what we could to protest and reject this decision, but this means that from now these facilities are no longer safe.”
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent said its operations at Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City face an “imminent threat” after the Israeli military ordered the hospital’s evacuation.
The PRCS posted in an “urgent appeal” on Friday saying that the hospital was “a sanctuary for over 400 patients and around 12,000 displaced civilians”.
But an IDF spokesman has told CNN that this was misinformation spread by Hamas.
GAZA HOSPITAL STRIKE NOT ISRAEL: FRANCE
France has become the latest nation to conclude that a deadly blast at the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on Tuesday was not the result of an Israeli missile strike, but most likely a misfiring Palestinian rocket, Reuters reports.
The news agency cited the French military intelligence directorate. “There is nothing that allows us to say that it is an Israeli strike, but the most likely [scenario] is a Palestinian rocket that had a firing incident,” it said.
More than 470 people were reported killed in the blast, which Hamas blamed on Israel but which a growing number of countries and intelligence agencies are attributing to a failed missile launch from inside Gaza, possibly by Islamic Jihad.
ISRAEL UNVEILS 3-PHASE PLAN
Israel’s Ministry of Defence unveiled its three-phase plan to create a new “security “regime” in the Gaza Strip, announcing the first phase had begun.
“We are in the first phase, in which a military campaign is taking place with [air strikes] and later with a [ground] manoeuvre with the purpose of destroying operatives and damaging infrastructure in order to defeat and destroy Hamas,” said Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
The aerial bombardment and coming ground incursion of the first phase are expected to destroy the ability of Hamas to both operate its terrorist activities and govern the civil institutions in Gaza.
Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Tel Aviv, Gallant added that by the end of the war, Israel’s responsibility for the Gaza Strip will cease.
The second phase of the war will enter “lower intensity” fighting as Israeli troops “eliminate pockets of resistance”.
“The third step will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip, and the creation of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of the [area surrounding Gaza],” he said.
“We will topple the Hamas organisation. We will destroy its military and governing infrastructure. It’s a phase that will not be easy. It will have a price,” he said, adding the war would be long and drawn out.
“It’s not a day, it’s not a week, and unfortunately it’s not a month,” he said.
$A167 BILLION FOR ISRAEL, UKRAINE
US President Joe Biden formally requested military aid for Ukraine and Israel in a massive USD $106 billion ($A167BN) national security package, but Republican paralysis in Congress means it will hit an immediate wall.
Biden’s demand came a day after he drew a direct link between the Hamas attack on Israel and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to convince Americans that the United States must show global leadership.
Biden argued in an Oval Office speech that the huge sums involved — a total of $105.85 billion, including $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel — would secure US interests for generations to come.
HAMAS MASTERMINDS ON ‘DEAD MAN WALKING’ HIT LIST
They call one the “face of evil”. Another is known as “the cat with nine lives”. But together, two high-ranking Hamas operatives are being called something else by the Israeli Defense Forces: dead men walking.
Israel has targeted two key figures who they say were the masterminds behind the October 7 attacks: military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar.
Security sources believe the two men are embedded in a network of tunnels built to resist Israeli bombardment.
But the pair have spent years operating in the shadows.
FOREIGNERS IN LEBANON URGED TO LEAVE
In a prime time TV address, US President Joe Biden also warned of the dangers of escalation, saying if America walked away from Israel or Ukraine, “would-be aggressors around the world would be emboldened to try the same”.
“The risk of conflict and chaos could spread to other parts of the world,” Mr Biden said.
The US State Department took the rare step of issuing a worldwide warning for American travellers to exercise caution wherever they were, and urged any US citizens in Lebanon to leave the country.
Australia and the UK had already updated their travel advice for Lebanon, warning citizens not to travel there.
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