On Saturday, the Israeli military said that humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip would go only to southern areas of the enclave, where it has suggested Palestinian civilians congregate to avoid its fighting with Hamas.
Chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised briefing that the aid shipments would not include fuel.
He gave 210 as the updated number of hostages held by Hamas since its October 7 attack on Israel and said around a fifth of Palestinian rockets launched since Friday had fallen short within Gaza due to misfires, causing fatalities.
Hamas’ media office issued a statement saying that expected truckloads of aid ‘will not change the catastrophic medical conditions in Gaza’.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt into besieged and war-torn Gaza started passing through the Rafah border crossing on Saturday, a security source and an Egyptian Red Crescent official told AFP.
Earlier on Saturday, Egyptian state television showed several trucks entering the gate on the 15th day of the clash between Israel and Hamas, the militant movement that rules the Palestinian enclave of 2.4 million people, Hamas’s media office said.
