Key Points
- US citizens Judith and Natalie Raanan have become the first hostages released by Hamas.
- Trucks carrying aid have begun to enter the Egypt-Gaza crossing, as Israel's blockade continues.
- Benjamin Netanyahu says there will be no pause in the Israeli military's bombardment and expected ground invasion of Gaza.
Trucks with humanitarian aid that has been stranded in Egypt entered with the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday after days of diplomatic wrangling over conditions for delivering the relief.
The delivery comes after Israeli Prime Minister vowed to "fight until victory" in Gaza, signalling no pause in his military's bombardment and expected invasion of the enclave following Hamas releasing two US hostages.
Israeli jets have made a large number of airstrikes over the weekend, with one causing damage at a church where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought refuge.
Egypt is hosting an international conference on Saturday to discuss the escalating war, as well as mounting concerns about a regional conflict.
Aid trucks have begun to cross into Gaza from Egypt
Television images on Saturday showed trucks moving into the Rafah border crossing area from the Egyptian side.
Rafah is the main route in and out of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel, and the focus of efforts to deliver aid to Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
The United Nations said the 20-truck convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, said he welcomed the announcement that an aid convoy had entered Gaza.
"I am confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine and fuel – to the people of Gaza, in a safe, dependable, unconditional and unimpeded manner," he said.
"The humanitarian situation in Gaza — already precarious — has reached catastrophic levels," Griffiths said in a statement.
UN officials say at least 100 trucks a day are needed in Gaza to cover urgent needs, and that any delivery of aid needs to be sustained and at scale. Before the outbreak of conflict, an average of about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily.
World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed WHO medical supplies had crossed the Rafah border but said a lot more needed to be done.
Palestinian group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said the delivery included medicine and limited amounts of food.
Hamas' media office issued a statement on Saturday saying that expected truckloads of aid "will not change the catastrophic medical conditions in Gaza".
The Palestinian health ministry said the exclusion of fuel from humanitarian aid reaching the enclave will leave the lives of the sick and wounded in danger.
"We appeal to the international community and Egypt to work immediately to bring in fuel and emergency health needs before more victims are lost in hospitals," the statement said.
Rafah was out of operation for nearly two weeks since Hamas attacked Israel.
The aid shipments come amid a total siege on Gaza, with Israel blocking all shipments of food, fuel and medical supplies.
Israel has said it will allow no aid to enter from its territory until Hamas releases the hostages it took during its attack, and that aid can enter through Egypt as long as it does not end up in the hands of Hamas.
The UN has warned that food has been running out in Gaza and supplies of fuel needed to keep hospital back-up generators running have reached dangerously low levels.
Western states have been pushing to evacuate foreign passport holders from Gaza and the U.S. Embassy in Israel said any border opening on Saturday could enable foreigners to leave the territory.
Aid delivery comes after release of two hostages by Hamas
The militant group Hamas on Friday released US mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan who were kidnapped in its attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
"Two of our abductees are at home. We are not giving up on the effort to return all abducted and missing people," Netanyahu said in a statement released late Friday night.
"At the same time, we'll continue to fight until victory," he added.
The women, who were taken from Nahal Oz kibbutz, near the Gaza border, were on their way to a military base in central Israel, a statement from Netanyahu's office said. Media reports in the United States said they were from Evanston, a suburb of Chicago.
They are the first hostages confirmed by both sides in the Hamas-Israel war to be freed since Hamas gunmen burst into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and .
An image obtained by Reuters after their release, showed the two women surrounded by three Israeli soldiers and holding hands with Gal Hirsch, Israel's coordinator for the captives and missing. In the image, Natalie is wearing jeans and a grey hoodie while Judith was wearing a long blue shirt.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, said the hostages were released in response to Qatari mediation efforts: "for humanitarian reasons, and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by (US President Joe) Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless".
An Israeli army statement earlier in the day said a majority of the hostages were alive.
What has happened since the two hostages were released?
After Netanyahu signalled no pause in Israel's aerial onslaught and expected ground invasion, its military said fighter jets had struck a "large number of Hamas terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip" including command centres and combat positions inside multi-story buildings.
Palestinian medical officials and Hamas media said Israeli aircraft had overnight targeted several family houses across Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places, killing at least 50 people and injuring dozens.
Most of Gaza's inhabitants depend on humanitarian aid. The heavily urbanised and widely impoverished territory has been under Israeli and Egyptian blockade since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the enclave in 2005. Source: ABACA / Middle East Images/ABACA/PA/Alamy
Israel levelled a northern Gaza district earlier on Friday after giving families a half-hour warning to escape.
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said that Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where hundreds of Christians and Muslims had sought refuge.
The Israeli military said part of the church was damaged in a strike on a nearby militant command centre.
Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Source: AAP / Ariel Hermoni HANDOUT/EPA
"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," Gallant said.
He added that the subsequent phase would be more drawn out, but was aimed at achieving "a completely different security situation" with no threat to Israel from Gaza.
"It's not a day, it's not a week, and unfortunately it's not a month," he said.
Israel has already told all civilians to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which includes Gaza City.
Many people have yet to leave saying they fear losing everything and have nowhere safe to go with southern areas also under attack.
Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the perimeter of Gaza for a planned ground invasion.
Its bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 4,385 Palestinians, as well as 13,651 injured since the conflict between Hamas and Israel escalated on Oct. 7, according to Palestinian officials.
The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said more than 140,000 homes - nearly a third of all homes in Gaza - have been damaged, with nearly 13,000 completely destroyed.
The UN says more than a million have been made homeless.
Biden walks back reported comments calling for ground-invasion delay
Late on Friday, reporters shouted questions at Biden as he was climbing the stairs to board Air Force One, over the sound of the plane's engines.
One of the questions was whether Israel should delay an invasion of Gaza until more hostages can get out. "Yes," Biden replied.
The White House later said that Biden did not fully hear the question. "The president was far away. He didn't hear the full question," White House communications director Ben LaBolt said.
"The question sounded like 'Would you like to see more hostages released?' He wasn't commenting on anything else," LaBolt added.
Biden formally asked Congress on Friday for billions of dollars in US military aid for Israel. But has also said: "We can't ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians".
Asked if Israel had so far followed the laws of war in it’s response, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated on Friday that Israel has the right to defend itself and make sure Hamas is not able to launch attacks again.
"It's important that operations be conducted in accordance with international law, humanitarian law, the law of war ... There will be plenty of time to make assessments about how these operations were conducted but I can just say from the part of the United States, this continues to be important to us," he added.
Egypt hosts summit to discuss Israeli-Hamas war
Egypt is hosting an international conference on Saturday to discuss the escalating war, as well as mounting concerns about a regional conflict.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told the Cairo Peace Summit on Saturday that he had invited leaders to come to an agreement for roadmap to end humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip and revive a path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The roadmap's goals included the delivery of aid to Gaza and agreeing a ceasefire, followed by negotiations leading to a two-state solution, he said.
A list compiled by Reuters said that summit attendees would include Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah, and the heads of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq.
"The message the Arab world is hearing is that Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones," King Abdullah told the summit, adding he was outraged and grieved by acts of violence waged against innocent civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.
"The Israeli leadership must realise once and for all that a state can never thrive if it is built on a foundation of injustice ... Our message to the Israelis should be that we want a future of peace and security for you and the Palestinians."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said "we won't leave, we will remain on our land" during his opening speech on Saturday.
Several heads of state from outside the Middle East are also attending, as is United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Guterres told the summit that the time has come for “action to end this godawful nightmare” and called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
“I appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire now,” he said.
According to Reuters, the absence of a top official from Israel's main ally the United States and some other major Western leaders has cooled expectations for what the hastily-convened event can achieve.
The US, which has no ambassador currently assigned to Egypt, will be represented by its embassy charge d'affaires.
Western leaders have so far mostly offered support to Israel's campaign against Hamas, although there is mounting unease about the plight of civilians in Gaza.
Many Muslim states, however, have called for an immediate ceasefire, and protests demanding an end to the bombardment were held in several cities across the world on Friday.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on Israel to end "its operations amounting to genocide".
Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group, gaining power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006.
Hamas’ stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US.
Some countries list only its military wing as a terrorist group.
The United Nations does not designate Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation, due to insufficient support from member states to do so during a 2018 vote.
