Key points
- 20 aid trucks reach Gaza after overnight bombardment kills dozens
- Gaza death toll rises to 4,385 with 13,651 injured, Palestinian officials say
- President Mahmoud Abbas says Palestinians “won’t leave” their land in Cairo speech
- Rafah crossing opened on Saturday, with 20 aid trucks entering from Egypt into Gaza
- Hamas says aid “will not change catastrophic medical conditions in Gaza”
- Hamas has released two American hostages who were captured by its militants
- More than 200 Israelis remain in captivity – including 30 children and 20 older people
- Thousands march through Dublin in support of Palestinians and in opposition to Israel’s military actions in Gaza
Top reads
- Hamas releases two US hostages taken during assault on Israel
- Families of Israeli hostages split on possible ground invasion of Gaza
- Opinion: What are the rules of war Israel must obey?
- How attitudes to Israel are hardening in the wider German population
- Gaza stories: ‘I have lost my house, I have lost everything.
Twenty trucks carrying aid crossed into Gaza on Saturday, the first convoy of humanitarian supplies since Israel began a devastating siege 12 days ago and after further heavy Israeli bombardment overnight that killed dozens of Palestinians.
US president Joe Biden had said earlier this week that agreement had been reached for the aid trucks to enter via southern Gaza Strip’s Rafah border point with Egypt.
The flatbed trucks, flying white flags and honking their horns, exited the crossing after checks and headed into Gaza’s southern area which includes the major towns of Rafah and Khan Younis where hundreds of thousands of people made homeless by Israel’s unrelenting air war are sheltering.
However, Palestinian officials were disappointed that fuel supplies were not included in the consignment of food, water and medical supplies and added that the aid was only three per cent of what used to get into Gaza before the crisis. – Reuters
Read the full story and follow the rest of the conflict’s developments on Saturday here.
Thousands of people have marched through Dublin city centre on Saturday afternoon in support of Palestinians and in opposition to Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Protesters marched from the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square to Merrion Square chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Israeli ambassador; out out out”.
The event was organised by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign group with representatives from People Before Profit, Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats present.
A number of people carried Palestinian flags and wore Palestinian keffiyeh scarves carrying signs which stated “Stop the genocide in Gaza” and “Arms Embargo in Israel now”.
Read the full story from Sarah Burns here.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy talked with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday, Zelenskiy said, in a call where the two men discussed Ukraine’s peace formula, food security, and situation in the Middle East.
“We discussed the next round of negotiations on the Peace Formula, which will take place in Malta. Turkey will participate, adding its authoritative voice and position,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
“We also discussed the situation in the Middle East and agreed on the need to ensure the protection of civilians and respect for humanitarian law,” he added. – Reuters
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday that the international community must avoid an escalation in the war between Israel and Hamas and set a roadmap towards the two states solution.
“Although our starting points are far apart, our interests overlap perfectly: that what is happening in Gaza does not become a much wider conflict, a religious war, a clash of civilisations,” Meloni said speaking in Italian.
“I have the impression that this was the real aim of the Hamas attack, not to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, but an attack that would create an unbridgeable gap between the Palestinians and the Israelis, meaning that the target is all of us, and we cannot fall into this trap, which would be very stupid.”
The Italian premier met Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo before travelling to Tel Aviv to meet Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ms Meloni and Mr Abbas discussed the need to work hard for a de-escalation of the Israel-Hamas war and for a two-state solution, the Italian leader told journalists, referring to the idea of establishing two separate and independent states, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.
“I hope that there is a responsibility on the part of whole international community, and it seems to me that there is, to speed up this process and provide a structural solution to the conflict,” Meloni said.
She stressed that a two-state solution must have a clear timeframe. – Reuters
Palestinian militant faction Hamas said on Saturday it won’t discuss the fate of Israeli army captives until Israel ends its “aggression” on the Gaza strip.
“Our stance with regards to Israeli army captives is clear: it’s related to a [possible] exchange of prisoners, and we will not discuss it until Israel ends its aggression on Gaza and Palestinians,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan, speaking from Lebanon, told a televised presser. – Reuters
A small blast occurred overnight outside the Israeli embassy in the Cypriot capital Nicosia, police said. No damage or injuries were reported and four people were later remanded in custody.
Police said a metal object containing “a small amount of pyrotechnic material” exploded about 30 metres away from a perimeter compound of the embassy, which lies in a heavily populated area of Nicosia.
Four people aged between 17 and 21 found in the area were remanded on suspicion of attempting to destroy property with explosives, possession and use of explosive materials and carrying a weapon. In the car of one of the detainees police found two knives and a hammer.
Cyprus, on the edge of the volatile Middle East, has tightened security at locations across the island. In the wake of fresh violence authorities widened a security cordon around the embassy, shutting off civilian roads.
The embassy was the target of a botched bombing attempt in 1988 when a car packed with explosives went off on a nearby bridge, killing three people. – Reuters
Pro-Palestinian protesters in central London on Saturday chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, despite an ongoing controversy around the slogan’s meaning.
UK home secretary Suella Braverman has previously branded the slogan anti-Semitic and claimed that it is “widely understood” to call for the destruction of Israel.
While Jewish groups including the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust, have asked prosecutors to clarify if chanting the slogan is a criminal offence.
However, those who defend the slogan describe it as a “long-standing protest chant” that calls for a homeland for the Palestinian people.
The Metropolitan Police increased its estimate of the size of the protest in London to “up to 100,000″ as of 2pm. – PA
The Gaza diplomacy of Biden and co seems to be heading for failure
Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor at the Guardian:
Two weeks of non-stop western shuttle diplomacy appear to have reached the brink of failure since, as it stands, the West can only point to 20 aid trucks crossing into Gaza as the visible fruit of its labour.
At the same time, Israel’s neighbours are taking to the streets and acts of terrorism are returning to the capitals of Europe.
With more than 4,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis already dead, the only certainty is that Gaza’s depleted healthcare system will collapse if Israel launches a lengthy land invasion to wipe out Hamas.
The round of western diplomatic visits to Jerusalem had a dual purpose. They were public acts of solidarity in which the visit was the message, but there was also private questioning of the Israeli war cabinet, and what comes after an invasion.
In particular Joe Biden, for all the empathy that he showed to victims and the families of hostages, has been quite sharp in urging caution on Israel, though he was subtle in couching that counsel in terms of the lessons the US has taken from fighting terrorism.
Biden told Israel not to be consumed by rage as the US was after 9/11, saying: “While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
In a stopover with reporters on the way back from Israel, he revealed the US military had discussed with the Israeli military whether an alternative to a ground assault was available. He said he had been blunt with Israel that its reputation was at stake.
He relayed to reporters he had told the Israelis: “If you have an opportunity to alleviate the pain, you should do it. Period. And if you don’t, you’re going to lose credibility worldwide. And I think everyone understands that.” It was a version of US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s careful refrain to the Israelis that what you do matters, but so does how you do it.
Biden rested the judgment of his visit, the first by a US president to Israel in wartime, on the opening of the Rafah crossing, saying: “Had we gone and this failed, then, you know, the United States failed, Biden’s presidency fails, et cetera, which would be a legitimate criticism.”
Aid groups have welcomed the breakthrough he claimed to have secured, but also say 20 trucks for two million people hardly amounts to sticking plaster. The hope is that this is only a start, as shown by the personal presence of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, at the crossing on Friday.
Blinken’s bigger US goal to establish safe zones in Gaza’s war zone was never easy, and may ultimately prove a mirage. Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, pointed to the bombing of Dresden in the second world war, as she insisted civilian casualties were inevitable in wars.
Very little progress has been made in gaining the release of the 200 or so hostages. A mother and daughter from Chicago who were taken on October 7th and held hostage in Gaza were released after Qatar brokered negotiations with the militant group.
Hamas at present seems unwilling in its discussions with its interlocutors the Qataris to let the International Committee of the Red Cross visit them, fearing their location will be leaked to the Israelis.
Elsewhere, there was a trace of impatience in the Downing Street readout of the meeting between Rishi Sunak and Qatar’s prime minister, in which Sunak said the UK was willing “to use all the tools at its disposal” to rescue British hostages. – Guardian
French foreign minister Catherine Colonna said on Saturday in Cairo that a humanitarian corridor is needed to deliver aid to civilian populations in Gaza and can lead to a ceasefire.
The death toll in Gaza rose to 4,385 dead with 13,651 injured since the conflict between Hamas and Israel escalated on October 7th, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The dead include 1,756 children and 976 women, the health ministry added.
Under the agreement struck by the US, Israel, Egypt and the UN, only 20 trucks are being allowed in on Saturday, carrying deliveries from the Egyptian Red Crescent to the Palestinian Red Crescent organisation.
Aid officials said they were not expecting a delivery on Sunday, with the next consignment due to be a UN convoy on Monday.
The Israeli government has demanded to see proof that the aid deliveries are not seized or diverted by Hamas, before authorising further deliveries.
A UN official said on Saturday that “verification procedures are still under discussion”.
Aid agencies are also negotiating with Israel to allow fuel, essential for hospital generators and Gaza’s water desalination and pumping system, to be part of the humanitarian convoys.
“The people of Gaza need a commitment for much, much more – a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed,” the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told the peace summit in Cairo.
On Friday, Mr Guterres visited the Rafah crossing where substantial quantities of humanitarian aid were waiting for the green light to cross into Gaza.
“There I saw a paradox – a humanitarian catastrophe playing out in real time,” he said. “On the one hand, I saw hundreds of trucks teeming with food and other essential supplies. On the other hand, we know that just across the border, there are two million people – without water, food, fuel, electricity and medicine. Children, mothers, the elderly, the sick. Full trucks on one side, empty stomachs on the other.”
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said the hastily arranged summit aimed to produce a roadmap for humanitarian relief and to revive hopes of Israeli-Palestinian peace. – Guardian
Also in Cairo, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday that the international community must avoid an escalation in the war between Israel and Hamas and set a roadmap towards the two-states solution.
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said no military intervention can replace a viable political solution.
More from the summit of Arab leaders in Cairo:
Arab leaders condemned Israel’s two-week-old bombardment of Gaza on Saturday and demanded renewed efforts to reach a Middle East peace settlement to end a decades-long cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Speaking at a hastily convened gathering dubbed the Cairo Peace Summit, Jordan’s King Abdullah denounced what he termed global silence about Israel’s attacks on the enclave and urged an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
“The message the Arab world is hearing is that Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones,” he said, 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 Palestinians would not be displaced or driven off their land. “We won’t leave, we won’t leave,” he told the summit.
Israel has vowed to wipe the Gaza-based Hamas militant group “off the face of the earth” over an assault on southern Israel that killed 1,400 people on October 7th, the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israeli history.
It has said it told Palestinians to move south within Gaza for their own safety.
The Cairo gathering is trying to find ways to head off a wider regional war, although the assembled Middle Eastern and European leaders are expected to struggle to agree a common position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants.
Three diplomats said it was unlikely there would be a joint statement from the gathering because of sensitivities around any calls for a ceasefire, and whether to include mention of Hamas’s attack and Israel’s right to defend itself.
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 United States, which has no ambassador currently assigned to Egypt, is represented by its embassy Charge d’Affaires. – Reuters
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said “we won’t leave, we will remain on our land” during his opening speech at the Cairo Peace Summit on Saturday.
The summit is being held in Egypt as Israel prepares a ground assault on Gaza following Hamas’s attack that killed 1,400 people.
More than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s counteroffensive, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, amid a growing humanitarian crisis.
Israel says at least 307 of its soldiers have died since the Hamas raids on October 7th, and that some 700,000 residents of Gaza City and surrounding areas have moved southward.
At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Saturday from an air strike in Gaza’s Deir El Balah neighborood, Hamas’s Al Shehab news agency reported.
The incident happened over a single residential unit, Al Shehab said.
The outbreak of armed conflict does not give a country the unrestrained right to retaliate. Israel must follow international humanitarian law.
In an opinion piece, Prof Ray Murphy examines the rules of war Israel must obey
Leaders and senior officials from the Middle East and Europe will meet in Cairo on Saturday in a bid to ensure aid supplies get into Gaza and prevent the Israel-Hamas war becoming a wider conflict.
The gathering – hosted by Egypt’s president and expected to included the leaders of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as European foreign ministers – will follow Hamas’s release of two American hostages from Gaza late on Friday.
It also comes as Israel and the US begin planning for how the Palestinian territory will be run, and by who, after a widely expected Israeli ground invasion. – Bloomberg
Hamas’s media office issued a statement on Saturday saying that expected truckloads of aid “will not change the catastrophic medical conditions in Gaza”.
More details from Bloomberg on the reopening of the Rafah crossing here:
Vital aid began crossing into Gaza from Egypt for the first time since the Israel-Hamas war erupted two weeks ago, TV footage showed, fulfilling a key demand of US, EU and Arab leaders as the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory worsens.
Around 20 trucks carrying aid for Gaza began crossing the Rafah border point on Saturday morning, Egyptian TV channel Extra News reported.
The opening of Rafah, the only non-Israeli border crossing that Gaza has, has been complicated by the need for Egypt, Israel and Hamas to all agree for it to happen. Egypt and Israel have blamed each other and Hamas for Rafah staying shut until now.
It is unclear how long the crossing will be open and whether foreigners will be allowed out. The US embassy in Israel said American citizens may get a chance to leave on Saturday. Still, it warned the situation was fluid and chaotic.
The development comes as Middle Eastern, European and Chinese officials prepare to gather in Cairo for a crisis summit. They may reiterate calls for a de-escalation as Israel continues its air strikes on the Palestinian territory and prepares for a ground assault.
Egypt has emerged as a key player as world powers seek to ensure Gaza gets supplies of water, food and power. Israel put the enclave under a total siege after Hamas, which rules Gaza, sent militants rampaging through southern Israel on October 7th, killing about 1,400 people.
In our Weekend Review this morning Derek Scally writes on how attitudes to Israel are shifting – and hardening – in the wider German population.
Former leader Angela Merkel suggested Israel’s security was Germany’s Staatsräson (raison d’être) but how far, and how unconditional, is that support in these challenging times?
Good morning.
In the latest news from the war between Israel and Hamas, aid trucks have entered the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, a Palestinian border official has confirmed, while Egyptian television showed trucks entering the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Hamas released two American hostages who were captured by its militants during a deadly incursion into Israel two weeks ago.
Mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan were handed over to Red Cross representatives who escorted them across the border to Israel.
More than 200 Israelis remain in captivity – including 30 children and 20 older people.
An aid convoy entering today will include 20 trucks with medical and limited food supplies, says Hamas.
Follow all the latest updates on the situation in the Middle East here.
