TEL AVIV, Israel: Egypt said Friday it has agreed to send United Nations humanitarian aid trucks through Israel’s main crossing into Gaza, but it was unclear if they will be able to enter the territory as fighting raged in the southern city of Rafah amid Israel’s escalating offensive there.
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has spiraled as the UN and other aid agencies say the entry of food and other supplies to them has plunged dramatically since Israel’s Rafah offensive began more than two weeks ago. On Friday, the top UN court — the International Court of Justice — ordered Israel to halt the Rafah offensive, though Israel is unlikely to comply.
At the heart of the problem lie the two main crossings through which around 300 trucks of aid a day had been flowing into Gaza before the offensive began.
Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been inoperative since. The nearby Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza has remained open, and Israel says it has been sending hundreds of trucks a day into it. But while commercial trucks have successfully crossed, the UN says it cannot reach Kerem Shalom to pick up aid as it enters because fighting in the area makes it too dangerous.
As a result, the UN says it has received only 143 trucks from the crossing in the past 19 days. Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting on the Gaza side of the crossing unretrieved, according to Israeli officials, who say UN manpower limitations are to blame. UN and other aid agencies had to rely on the far smaller number of trucks entering daily from a single crossing in northern Gaza and via a US-built pier bringing supplies by sea.
Humanitarian groups are scrambling to get food to Palestinians as some 900,000 people flee Rafah, scattering across central and southern Gaza. Aid workers warn Gaza is near famine. UNRWA, the main UN agency in the humanitarian effort, had to halt food distribution in Rafah city because it had run out of supplies.
The Egyptian announcement appeared to resolve a political obstacle on one side of the border.
Israel says it has kept the Rafah crossing open and asked Egypt to coordinate with it on sending aid convoys through it. Egypt refused, fearing the Israeli hold will remain permanent, and demanded Palestinians be put back in charge of the facility. The White House has been pressing Egypt to resume the flow of trucks.
In a phone call with US President Joe Biden on Friday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi agreed to allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel to go to the Kerem Shalom crossing until a solution is found for the Rafah crossing, El-Sisi’s office said in a statement.
But it remained unclear whether the UN will be able to access additional trucks coming from Egypt.
UNRWA did not immediately reply to requests for comment. In a post on social media outlet X on Thursday, it said, “We could resume (food distribution in Rafah) tomorrow if the crossing reopened & we were provided with safe routes.”
Mercy Corps, an aid group operating in Gaza, said in a statement Friday that the offensive had caused the “functional closure … of the two main lifelines” of aid and “has brought the humanitarian system to its knees.”
“If dramatic changes do not occur, including opening all border crossings to safely surge aid into these areas, we fear that a wave of secondary mortality will result, with people succumbing to the combination of hunger, lack of clean water and sanitation, and the spread of disease in areas where there is little medical care,” it said.
Fighting appeared to escalate in Rafah. Bombardment intensified Friday in eastern parts of the city, near Kerem Shalom, but shelling was also taking place in central, southern and western districts closer to the Rafah crossing, witnesses said.
Israeli leaders have said they must uproot Hamas fighters from Rafah to complete the destruction of the group after its Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel’s campaign of bombardment and offensives in Gaza has killed more than 35,800 Palestinians and wounded more than 80,200, the Gaza Health Ministry said Friday. Its count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military said its troops overnight found the bodies of three people killed in the Oct. 7 attack and subsequently taken into Gaza and counted among the hostages.
The bodies of Hanan Yablonka, Michel Nisenbaum, and Orion Hernandez Radoux were found in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have been fighting for the past week with Hamas militants, the military said.
The announcement comes less than a week after the army said it found in the same area the bodies of three other Israeli hostages also killed on Oct. 7.
Nisenbaum, 59, was a Brazilian-Israeli from the southern city of Sderot. He was killed in his car as he went to get his 4-year-old granddaughter from a site near Gaza that came under attack by the militants.
Oryon Hernandez Radoux, 30, and Yablonka, 42, a father of two, were both killed as they tried to escape the Nova music festival, where the attackers killed hundreds of people. Hernandez Radoux had been attending the festival with his partner, German-Israeli Shani Louk, whose body was among those found by the army earlier.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of at least 39 more, while 17 bodies of hostages have been recovered.
The group representing the families of the hostages said the bodies had been returned to their families for burial. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country had a duty to do everything to return those abducted, both those killed and those who are alive.
French President Emmanuel Macron gave condolences to the family of Hernández-Radoux, a French-Mexican citizen, saying France remains committed to releasing the hostages.
CIA Director Bill Burns was meeting in Paris on Friday with Israeli and Qatari officials in informal talks aimed at getting hostage and ceasefire negotiations back on track, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. Burns is in close contact with Egyptian officials, who like the Qataris have acted as mediators with Hamas, the US official said.
Ceasefire talks ground to a halt at the beginning of the month after a major push by the US and other mediators to secure a deal, in hopes of averting a planned Israeli invasion of the southern city of Rafah. The talks were stymied by a central sticking point: Hamas demands guarantees that the war will end and Israeli troops will withdraw from Gaza completely in return for a release of all the hostages, a demand Israel rejects.
Egypt agrees to send aid trucks through Israeli crossing to Gaza but impact is unclear
https://arab.news/y5svv
Egypt agrees to send aid trucks through Israeli crossing to Gaza but impact is unclear
- Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been inoperative since
- The UN says it cannot reach Kerem Shalom to pick up aid as it enters because fighting in the area makes it too dangerous
Iraq holds Kurdish government legally responsible for continued oil smuggling
Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s oil ministry said on Thursday it holds the Kurdish regional government (KRG) legally responsible for the continued smuggling of oil from the Kurdish region outside the country.
The ministry reserves the right to take all legal measures in the matter, it added.
Control over oil and gas has long been a source of tension between Baghdad and Irbil.
Iraq is under pressure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output to compensate for having produced more than its agreed volume. OPEC counts oil flows from Kurdistan as part of Iraq’s quota.
In a ruling issued in 2022, Iraq’s federal court deemed an oil and gas law regulating the oil industry in Iraqi Kurdistan unconstitutional and demanded that Kurdish authorities hand over their crude oil supplies.
The ministry said the KRG’s failure to comply with the law has hurt both oil exports and public revenue, forcing Baghdad to cut output from other fields to meet OPEC quotas.
The ministry added that it had urged the KRG to hand over crude produced from its fields, warning that failure to do so could result in significant financial losses and harm the country’s international reputation and oil commitments.
Negotiations to resume Kurdish oil exports via the Iraq-Turkiye oil pipeline, which once handled about 0.5 percent of global oil supply, have stalled over payment terms and contract details.
Jordan, Spain sign partnership deal, affirm support for Palestinian state
- King Abdullah meets King Felipe VI, Spanish PM in Madrid
- Jordan plays vital role in supporting Palestinians, Pedro Sanchez says
LONDON: Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday witnessed the signing of a declaration to establish a strategic partnership between their countries.
The deal is designed to increase cooperation in the economic, commercial, social, cultural and defense fields. A memorandum of understanding for the agriculture sector and an extradition agreement were also signed, the Jordan News Agency reported.
During his visit to Madrid, King Abdullah also met King Felipe VI of Spain. He praised the European nation’s support for Palestinian rights, its efforts to achieve peace in the region and its commitment to ending the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip.
He emphasized the significance of Spain’s decision to recognize the Palestinian state and said Jordan was working to gain greater European support for the Arab plan aimed at rebuilding Gaza without displacing its residents.
Sanchez said Jordan had a vital role in supporting Palestinians and that the war in Gaza must end.
King Abdullah was joined for the talks by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Director of the King’s Office Alaa Batayneh and Jordan’s Ambassador to Spain Raghad Al-Saqqa.
Red Sea marine traffic up 60 percent after Houthis narrowed targets, EU commander says
- Shipping traffic, which reached a low of 20-23 ships daily in August last year, is still short of an average of 72-75 ships a day, said Gryparis
- Gryparis said he could not guarantee that merchant ships won’t be attacked
MADRID: Red Sea marine traffic has increased by 60 percent to 36-37 ships a day since August 2024, but is still short of volumes seen before Yemen’s Houthis began attacking ships in the region, according to the commander of the EU’s Aspides naval mission.
The number of merchant ships using the narrow Bab Al-Mandab strait increased after missile and drone attacks by the Houthis slowed and the US and the rebel group signed a ceasefire deal, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis said in an interview in Madrid.
But shipping traffic, which reached a low of 20-23 ships daily in August last year, is still short of an average of 72-75 ships a day seen before the Houthis began attacks in the Red Sea in November in 2023 in support of Palestinians over Israel’s war in Gaza, said Gryparis.
The mission, which was established to safeguard navigation in the strategic trade route linking the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Asia through the Suez Canal, was extended in February when it was also tasked with tracking illegal arms shipments and monitoring vessels carrying sanctioned Russian oil.
The last attack on a merchant ship took place in November 2024 and the Houthis have also narrowed their objectives, saying their targets are Israeli ships and ships that have a connection with Israel or have docked at an Israeli port, Gryparis said.
“If you have a vessel that does not correspond to this criteria... there is a huge possibility — more than 99 percent — that you’re not going to be targeted by the Houthis,” Gryparis said.
Still, Gryparis said he could not guarantee that merchant ships won’t be attacked.
Some companies have been deterred from using the route because of the mission’s lack of ships, which can cause delays of as much as a week for those seeking to be escorted through the area, he said.
He said the mission has between two and three ships operating at one time and has requested the EU provide it with 10 ships to increase its capacity for protection.
The mission has provided close protection to 476 ships, shot down 18 drones, destroyed two remote-controlled boats used to attack ships and intercepted four ballistic missiles, he said.
How many hostages are left in Gaza?
- Hostages still in captivity: 56, of whom Israel believes 33 are dead
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has recovered the bodies of two hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli American Gad Haggai and Judih Weinstein — who was Israeli, American and Canadian — were killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. Their remains were returned to
Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency, Netanyahu said.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages in the Oct. 7 attack. More than 54,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, have been killed in the ensuing conflict, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Here are details on the hostages:
Total hostages captured on Oct. 7, 2023: 251
Hostages taken before the Oct. 7 attack: 4, including 2 who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015 and the bodies of 2 soldiers killed in the 2014 war
Hostages released in exchanges or other deals: 148, of whom 8 were dead
Bodies of hostages retrieved by Israeli forces: 43
Hostages rescued alive: 8
Hostages still in captivity: 56, of whom Israel believes 33 are dead. Netanyahu has said there are “doubts” about the fate of several more.
The hostages in captivity include: 5 non-Israelis ( 3 Thais, 1 Nepalese, 1 Tanzanian), of whom 3 (2 Thais and 1 Tanzanian) have been confirmed dead.
Egypt, Greece agree to protect status of Mount Sinai monastery, after court ruling
- Egypt and Greece intend to move forward based on the long-standing tradition and the already established status of an emblematic monastery for its Greek Orthodox character of worship
ATHENS: Greece and Egypt have agreed to safeguard the status of one of the world’s oldest sites of Christian worship, foreign ministers of both countries said late on Wednesday, after an Egyptian court ruling last week cast uncertainty over its future.
The St. Catherine’s Monastery, at the foot of Egypt’s Mount Sinai, was founded in the 6th century and is the oldest Christian monastery still in use for its original function, says UNESCO, which has listed the area as a World Heritage site.
Revered by Christians, Muslims and Jews, the monastery is at the site where by Biblical tradition Moses received the Ten Commandments.
But last week, an Egyptian court ruling seen by Reuters ordered Orthodox monks to vacate several plots of land that the monks have used for years, including vineyards and gardens adjacent to the monastery compound, on the grounds that they were illegally sequestered, prompting a diplomatic flurry between Cairo and Athens over the site’s status.
“We agreed in the immediate future to work toward safeguarding the rights of the monastery, as well as its legal status,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said after meeting his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty in Cairo.
“Both Egypt and Greece intend to move forward based on the long-standing tradition and the already established status of an emblematic monastery for its Greek Orthodox character of worship.”
Abdelatty said that the ruling preserves the monastery’s profound spiritual value and religious standing, and confirmed that the monks would continue to have access to and use of the monastery and its religious and historical sites, according to a foreign ministry statement. With a long history of diplomatic ties, Greece and Egypt have deepened cooperation in recent years.
St. Catherine’s is a sprawling complex, and according to tradition it was built around a burning bush where God was said to have spoken to Moses as described in the Book of Exodus. Its library is one of the most extensive worldwide, containing some of the world’s earliest Christian manuscripts.
