Israel Asks Citizens To Leave Egypt, Jordan. 1st Relief Aid Trucks Enter Gaza As Hospitals Flooded With Patients — Top Points

Israel-Gaza War: Trucks with humanitarian aid entered the Gaza border on Saturday for the first time since the conflict began earlier this month.

Israel-Hamas War: First 20 relief aid trucks enter Gaza, situation dire at hospitals.

Source : Getty Images

Israel-Hamas War: Trucks carrying humanitarian aid started entering the besieged Gaza Strip from Egypt on Saturday for the first time since the conflict began on October 7. The trucks are carrying relief goods for Palestinian people stuck in Gaza amid the ongoing violent clashes. According to CNN, the border was closed after 20 trucks with relief materials crossed into Gaza on the 15th day of the war. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffith meanwhile said that the first convoy carrying aid into the Gaza Strip "must not be the last".

"I am confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies… to the people of Gaza," he said as 20 trucks crossed into Gaza, reported Al Jazeera.

Our first humanitarian aid convoy from Egypt entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing 🇪🇬🇵🇸✌️❤️🙏

10:10 AM
21.Oct pic.twitter.com/U7FKcsgdni

— أحمدصالحAhmd Saleh (@iahmedsalih) October 21, 2023

Here are the top developments on the situation as of now.

 

Top Points On Israel-Hamas Conflict

• A UN update says that the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza has risen to 4,137, with 70 percent of the dead women and children. Al Jazeera reported that 352 people were killed alone in the last 24 hours.

 

• Twenty trucks carrying aid crossed into the Gaza Strip Saturday as the Rafah crossing with Egypt opened for the first time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Times of Israel reported that over 200 trucks were waiting on the Egyptian side.

 

• Executive director of the World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, said that the situation inside Gaza is dire and said these 20 trucks are not enough. "Not only is there no food, there is no water, electricity, or fuel. And that combination is not only catastrophic but can lead to more starvation and disease as well," she told Al Jazeera.

 

• Al Jazeera reports that Palestinians in Gaza are frustrated over aid quantities crossing Rafah. Pople say there were talks of 100 trucks being allowed in, but in the end, only 20 trucks were let through. People are angry over no fuel supply as hospitals continue to endure the situation.

 

• The World Health Organization earlier said on X that four of its trucks will bring aid into Gaza, including Trauma supplies for 1,200 people, Portable trauma bags for on-the-spot stabilisation for 235 people, Medication for chronic diseases for 1,500 people, Essential health supplies for 300,000 people for three months.

 

• Hamas-controlled Government Media Office said in a statement that the aid convoy of 20 trucks contained "medicines, medical supplies and a limited quantity of canned food."

 

• Israel on Saturday issued a warning against travel to Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, citing fears that Israeli citizens will be targets of those angry at the ongoing war. According to the Times of Israel, the announcement from the National Security Agency, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry says it is raising the alert to Egypt (including the Sinai Peninsula) and Jordan to a 4 and calling on all Israelis in the country to leave as soon as possible.

 

• Egypt is hosting dozens of regional leaders and senior Western officials for a summit on the war between Israel and Palestinian terror groups in Gaza.

 

• Hospitals in Gaza are "on the brink of collapse," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned, reported CNN. It said that the number of patients treated or waiting to be treated is at 150 per cent of the hospitals' capacity, and people are lying on the floors and corridors. UN OCHA said that nearly 60 per cent of primary healthcare facilities have shut down in Gaza, while hospitals are struggling to operate amid shortages of power, medicine, equipment and specialised personnel.

 

• Meanwhile, the UK’s Daily Telegraph paper reported that a terror attack was carried out in Britain by an asylum seeker claiming he wanted to avenge Gaza. The paper claimed that details of the attack were being withheld from the public for security reasons. It added that the man was arrested and told police that he had done it “for Palestine.”

 

• An explosive device went off overnight near the Israeli Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, causing no injuries, reported the Times of Israel citing local media reports.

 

• At least 13 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air raid in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, the Shehab news agency has reported.

 

• The Israel Defense Forces says it carried out strikes against numerous Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip overnight. According to CNN, the Hamas-run Ministry of Interior in Gaza said that at least 29 people died in the overnight strikes.

 

• UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that nearly 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 number of the displaced constitutes more than 60 per cent of Gaza’s population of about 2 million people.