Humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza… but fears grow Hamas will steal it for themselves: Biden warns terror group aid ‘will end’ if they confiscate goods intended to help two million civilians

• Egypt agreed to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow aid into Gaza 
• Israel Palestine news LIVE: Rishi Sunak arrives in Jewish state to hold talks  

Egypt has agreed to reopen its northern border with Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the war-torn enclave — but there are growing fears Hamas will steal it for themselves or use it as cover to bring in more weapons.  

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tonnes of aid are now positioned at the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, to deliver food, water and medicine to the millions of civilians trapped there amid withering Israeli airstrikes.

But under the deal agreed by Egypt after intense talks with President Joe Biden yesterday, only 20 trucks with humanitarian aid will be allowed into the enclave from Friday at the earliest amid fears that Hamas will confiscate the supplies.

If Hamas terrorists do try to stop the much-needed aid from reaching Palestinian civilians, ‘it will stop’, Biden said during his visit to Tel Aviv where he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The supplies will go in under the supervision of the UN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, adding that before any aid can be moved, the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes must be repaired.

The agreement marks the first crack in a punishing 10-day siege on the 25-mile enclave, which has largely been obliterated by Israeli airstrikes, and comes a day after a blast at a hospital killed hundreds and put immense strain on Gaza’s struggling medical system.

Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel ‘will not thwart’ the delivery of food, medicine and water from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don’t go to Hamas terrorists. His office made no mention of fuel, which is badly needed for hospital generators. 

Israel fears that aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring in weapons, or could be diverted into the hands of Hamas.

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Wednesday

3 Officials gather while workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

Palestinians work amidst the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, embraces her body during her funeral, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday 

This picture taken from Israel’s southern city of Sderot shows smoke billowing over the northern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on Thursday 

A formation of Israeli tanks and other military are positioned near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel amid an expected ground invasion on Thursday 

And adding a glimmer of hope for those trapped in Gaza, Shoukry said as long as the Rafah crossing is operating ‘normally’ and the crossing facility is repaired, foreigners and dual nationals hoping to leave would be let through to Egypt. 

Israel shut off all supplies to Gaza soon after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on October. As supplies run out, many families in Gaza have cut down to one meal a day and have been left to drink dirty water. 

Friday’s aid would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 203 hostages. 

Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for an expected ground assault. 

But relatives of those hostages who were dragged from their homes to Gaza – many of them children – during the October 7 attack on Israel have reacted in fury to the aid announcement. 

‘Children, infants, women, soldiers, men, and elderly, some with serious illnesses, wounded and shot, are held underground like animals,’ said a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. But ‘the Israeli government pampers the murderers and kidnappers.’ 

But the United Nations and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter.

Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans killed and 12,500 injured.

‘The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction’ he said ‘cannot be exaggerated.’

Despite the devastation, more than 100 trucks have been queued for days on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to enter Gaza.

After what he described ‘blunt’ negotiations and a telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree. 

‘We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible,’ Biden said aboard Air Force One.

‘If Hamas confiscates it or doesn’t let it get through… then it’s going to end, because we’re not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas,’ Biden said.

The announcement to allow water, food and other supplies happened as fury over the blast at Gaza City’s al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday 

Workers load an airplane heading to Egypt with humanitarian aid and relief goods to the Gaza Strip, at Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates on Thursday 

Volunteers and NGO staff camp in front of the Rafah border as they wait to deliver aid supplies to Gaza on Thursday in North Sinai, Egypt

President Joe Biden talks to reporters aboard Air Force One during a refuelling stop in at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on Wednesday as he travels back from Israel to Washington.

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday

A damaged car is seen as Palestinians walk amidst the rubble at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday 

A man carries a wounded child at the site of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis on Thursday 

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday 

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, carries her body during her funeral, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis on Thursday 

The huge blast ripped through the hospital on Tuesday night while it was being used to treat and shelter thousands of civilians who were trying to avoid Israel’s relentless barrage of airstrikes.

The devastating fireball sparked a venomous blame game between Hamas and Israel, with the terrorists claiming it was the result of an Israeli air strike while the IDF blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group, for a misfired rocket.

Biden sided with his ally Netanyahu after the President said he had seen ‘data’ from his own officials in the Pentagon to back up his claim that Israel was not to blame for the hospital strike and instead it was a result of an errant rocket fired by terrorists. 

‘Based on the information we’ve seen today it appears it was the result of an errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza,’ Biden said yesterday. 

But Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi today said ‘no one is buying’ the Israeli narrative about the Gaza hospital explosion ‘in this part of the world’. 

‘The only way people would entertain a different narrative is if there was an independent international inquiry into the tragedy with impeccable evidence that it was not Israel,’ Safadi told NBC News.  

The bloody devastation at al-Ahli threw the siege’s impact into sharp relief. 

Video from the scene showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Hundreds of wounded were rushed to Gaza City’s main hospital where doctors, already facing critical supply shortages, were sometimes forced to perform surgery on the floors, often without anaesthesia.

A steady stream of ambulances, taxis, cars and at least one motorcycle also arrived at a hospital in Khan Younis. Men jumped from the vehicles and scrambled to open doors, with hospital staff and bystanders helping carry the injured.

One man rushed in carrying a limp child in his arms. A girl with her head wrapped with a makeshift bandage was helped from a car. Many injured had to be carried by multiple men or hoisted onto gurneys.

As soon as one vehicle was unloaded, another arrived to take its place.

In his brief visit to Israel, Biden tried to strike a balance between showing US support for Israel, while containing growing alarm among Arab allies. 

He warned Israel to be cautious as it tries to remove the threat from Hamas. ‘After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice we also made mistakes,’ he said.

After decades in which Israel has gradually improved ties with its neighbours, the Hamas attacks and Israel’s furious response have rekindled old tensions.

Anger spiked on Wednesday, with protesters pouring onto the streets in cities from Tripoli to Tehran after a strike on the hospital. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claimed 471 people had died as a result, while blaming an Israeli air strike.

Israel denied responsibility, saying an initial investigation showed the strike was caused by a malfunctioning rocket fired by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Like Hamas, Islamic Jihad is proscribed as a terrorist group by the United States and other Western governments.

Neither the toll nor the provenance of the strike could be immediately or independently verified. One European intelligence agency told AFP: ‘There wasn’t 200 or even 500 deaths, more likely between 10 and 50.’ 

Biden said the Pentagon also believed the strike was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket.

‘Our Defense Department says it’s highly unlikely that it was the Israelis. It would have had a different footprint,’ he said, acknowledging that many around the region would still be sceptical.

‘I can understand why, in this circumstance, they wouldn’t believe. I can understand that,’ he said, insisting: ‘I don’t say things like that unless I have faith in the source.’

Eyewitness Adnan al-Naqa said that as he entered the hospital, he heard an ‘explosion’ and ‘saw a massive fire.’

‘The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people.’

Pictured: The burning hospital building after the strike on Tuesday night 

Children injured in the hospital strike cry as they receive treatment in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern of Gaza Strip on Tuesday

Biden and Netanyahu embrace at the airport in Tel Aviv on Wednesday 

In the hours following the incident, AFP reporters saw scores of bodies cloaked in bloodstained sheets and white plastic lined the floors at the nearby the Al-Shifa hospital, where victims were said to have been taken.

At the Ahli Arab hospital the day after the blast the charred husks of several vehicles littered the blackened courtyard.

The Israeli military pointed to the fire damage and the absence of a large impact crater as evidence that it was a rocket misfiring.

‘When a bomb, a big bomb like the ones we use hits the ground, it creates a very big crater,’ Israel Defence Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari also said the military was not firing in the area when the blast occurred. He said Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by Islamic Jihad militants from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast. Independent video showed one rocket in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, Hagari said.

Hamas has dismissed Israel’s claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its ‘outrageous lies do not deceive anyone.’

It also slammed the United States, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.

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