Middle East conflict live updates: Israel says it has reopened key aid crossing; U.S. paused bomb shipments to Israel
Israel said Wednesday it has reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing, a key entry point for humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip that was closed over the weekend after a deadly Hamas rocket attack. However, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said that as of Wednesday afternoon, it had not yet seen any fuel or aid enter. The Biden administration paused the shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel amid U.S. concerns about a long-planned Israeli ground operation in Rafah — the first known delay in U.S. arms transfers to Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Here’s what to know
- CIA Director William J. Burns was in Israel on Wednesday and meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said an Israeli official speaking on the condition of anonymity due to government policy.
- Talks on a cease-fire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas will resume Wednesday in Cairo, state-run Egyptian media reported. The United States believes that negotiations “should be able to close the remaining gaps” between Israel and Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
- According to UNRWA estimates, some 50,000 people have fled their homes or shelters in the Rafah area since Israel on Monday ordered several neighborhoods to evacuate ahead of military action. Israeli troops seized control of the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday, disrupting the flow of aid into the Strip.
- At least 34,844 people have been killed and 78,404 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
- Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 267 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operation in Gaza.
9:49 AM: Kerem Shalom crossing reopened, Israel says; U.N. says aid still held up
Middle East conflict live updates: Israel says it has reopened key aid crossing; U.S. paused bomb shipments to Israel
Israel said on Wednesday that it reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing, a vital entry point for humanitarian aid into Gaza. The crossing was closed over the weekend following an attack there that killed four Israeli soldiers, for which Hamas claimed responsibility.
Shimon Freedman, a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli military body charged with overseeing affairs in the Palestinian territories, said Wednesday afternoon the Kerem Shalom crossing was open and that trucks had passed through to the Gaza side of the border. The Washington Post could not independently verify that account.
UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said that as of 2:30 p.m. local time, the Kerem Shalom crossing was not functioning due to military operations in the area, and the agency has not yet seen any fuel or aid enter the Strip.
Separately, the Israel Defense Forces said it was reviewing an incident involving shots fired at a vehicle of Palestinian workers “who were on their way to work at the Gazan side” of the crossing. Several people were injured and receiving medical treatment by the IDF, it said, adding that the crossing was indeed “open for the entry of humanitarian aid” and that “operational activity” on the Gazan side of the border was continuing.
In a joint statement, the IDF and COGAT said trucks from Egypt were already arriving at the crossing carrying much-needed aid. The items include food, water, shelter equipment, medicine and medical equipment. After Israeli security personnel inspect the vehicles, the aid will be transferred to the Gazan side of the crossing, the statement said.
Teams from the United Nations, including one specializing in unexploded ordinances, planned to inspect the crossing before it reopens, Scott Anderson, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, told The Washington Post.
“They’re going to go down, make sure it’s clear and safe,” Anderson said. Once the crossing opens, deliveries of fuel and then aid will resume as soon as Wednesday afternoon local time, he said.
Along with the Erez crossing, the Kerem Shalom crossing helps facilitate the delivery of crucial supplies to Gaza’s population of over 2 million people, though almost no one has enough to eat and those inside the enclave face what officials call a “man-made” famine.
Since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the stream of aid trucks to Gaza has dwindled significantly. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a group of international aid organizations and charities, said in March that up to half of Gaza’s population faced catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation until July.
The IDF said that the projectiles used in the weekend’s Kerem Shalom attack came from Rafah, the southern Gaza city where Israel says the last Hamas battalions are hiding. Israel has long said that it will launch a ground offensive in Rafah, which was one of the last places of refuge for Gazans displaced amid Israel’s war.
Susannah George and Lior Soroka contributed reporting.
By: Jennifer Hassan, Claire Parker and Bryan Pietsch
8:15 AM: IDF continues ground operations in Rafah amid global condemnation
The Israel Defense Forces is continuing ground operations in areas of eastern Rafah, according to a statement Wednesday, amid mounting global opposition over Israel’s plans for a major offensive in the Gazan city.
According to the IDF, troops killed militants and uncovered infrastructure, including underground shafts, and were conducting raids on the Gazan side of the Rafah border crossing.
The operation came after Israel ordered about 100,000 people in parts of Rafah to evacuate to a humanitarian zone on Monday, warning of an operation with “extreme force.” Israel also seized control of the Rafah border crossing, a key entry point for aid and for patients to leave for medical treatments, on Tuesday. The Biden administration has paused shipments of thousands of weapons to Israel amid concern over the looming offensive in Rafah.
Israeli authorities have remained defiant in the face of U.S. and international opposition, saying that the last Hamas battalions were hiding there and vowing to destroy the militant group.
On Wednesday, Qatar’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said that it “condemns in the strongest terms” Israel’s bombardment of Rafah. Qatar, which is helping to mediate cease-fire and hostage release talks between Israel and Hamas, said that forcibly displacing civilians in Rafah “constitutes a serious violation of international law.”
Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Australia had “been clear” about its objection to a major ground offensive in Rafah, noting that an expanded military operation would be “devastating” for civilians sheltering in the city.
The United Nations estimates that over 1 million people have been displaced by the conflict and that the majority of people are in the Rafah, which was once considered one of the last places of refuge amid Israel’s war.
By: Jennifer Hassan
6:26 AM: Three Gazans describe life on the ground in Rafah
Palestinians crowd a street as smoke billows nearby from Israeli strikes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
These interviews from Rafah on Tuesday have been lightly edited for clarity. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity due to safety fears.
Mohamed Khaled, 22: “Safety is from God only. The Israelis announced the blocks that they will enter. I am currently next to those areas, so when our turn comes, we will have to leave — if we are still alive by then.
“We can’t find anywhere to go now. There is no place left. People are being scattered around, each leaving in a direction. Constant bombardment, I swear. It is not easy to leave. Transportation is extremely expensive for us. I pray tomorrow I could find a place to go to.”
Mohamed, 32: “I am in Mawasi, Rafah. There is bombardment around us. An hour ago the army evacuated a building in front of us. Israelis called residents by phone, asked how many people are in there and what their names are. And then they told residents to evacuate 5 kilometers away for their safety.
“I am originally from Gaza City and was forcibly displaced three times inside Gaza. One time, I was at my sister’s home and there was an airstrike. My mother and I were injured, and my sister and her husband were too. Then we moved to al-Shifa Hospital, but there were strikes too, so we left to the central city of Deir al-Balah, but that was evacuated, so we came to Rafah, where they bombed again, and now we are at Mawasi.
“A week ago, my sisters went to Egypt and one of their husbands went along with them. My other brother-in-law was rejected because he is Syrian, so I am here now with him and my mother. My mother was listed to leave but she refused to leave me behind. My name was rejected because it got mixed up with another name. … We are staying at a house with four other families, 34 people in total. It is a house but not so big. We have tents to stay at inside the house itself, because it has no roof in most of its parts.”
A 42-year-old medical worker in Rafah: “They are evacuating eastern parts. I am not afraid, I left it up in God’s hands. If there is no deal until Friday, I will have to leave Rafah. There are [drones] all over Rafah. It is very dangerous generally.
“I will go to Deir al-Balah. There is a piece of land there that my friend owns and has water. To God we complain. Almost a quarter of the people around me in tents have left. An exodus it is! There is no safe place. And now Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital has gone out of service. So if anyone gets injured, they only have God to save them.”
By: Heba Farouk Mahfouz
5:19 AM: Aid groups warned of famine before Kerem Shalom, Rafah crossing closures
Gaza has been cut off from vital aid delivery routes for days. But before the closures of the Kerem Shalom and Rafah border crossings this week, humanitarian groups were already warning of famine in parts of the territory due to aid delivery restrictions.
“People already didn’t have enough to meet their basic daily needs,” Scott Anderson, director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, told The Washington Post from Rafah.
“Every day is a missed opportunity” to get more aid to people who need it, he added.
While dealing with shortages over the past two days, Anderson said fuel deliveries to essential services like hospitals and telecommunication towers were suspended, forcing people to ration the use of generators. In some areas, cellphone towers ceased working, he said.
The closure of the Rafah crossing has also left Palestinians who were seeking medical attention stranded inside Gaza. Anderson estimated that there are thousands of people with clearance to travel to Egypt or elsewhere for medical treatment who are now unable to leave Gaza. Most of the people who qualify to leave the territory for treatment are teenagers or children.
Before Israel launched the operation to take control of the Rafah crossing, it ordered the evacuation of about 100,000 people from a handful of neighborhoods in southern Gaza. Since that order Monday morning, some 50,000 people have fled their homes or shelters in the Rafah area, according to UNRWA estimates. Many have arrived at the Mawasi area that Israel designated a safe zone, but it’s already overcrowded and lacking basic services like sewage and water.
“It’s essentially an open desert-like area, there’s no infrastructure,” Anderson said, explaining that an estimated 400,000 people are already sheltering there. “We’re concerned if the population becomes too dense you could have problems with disease outbreaks.”
By: Susannah George
2:10 AM: U.S. paused shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel amid Rafah rift
Smoke pours into the sky from Israeli military strikes in Rafah, southern Gaza, on Tuesday.
The Biden administration paused the shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel, including controversial 2,000-pound bombs, amid mounting concern about the country’s plan to expand a military operation in southern Gaza that could dramatically increase the conflict’s death toll, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
“Israel should not launch a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering with nowhere else to go,” said a senior administration official, explaining the U.S. decision to pause the weapons shipments. “We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.”
The disclosure marks the first known instance of a pause in U.S. arms transfers since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack into Israel that killed more than 1,200 people.
Since then, the United States has surged tens of thousands of bombs and missiles to its ally even as huge swaths of Gaza have been turned to rubble and the death toll among Palestinians has ballooned to more than 34,000, many of them women and children, according to local health authorities. President Biden has described the bombing as “indiscriminate,” but he has been reluctant to leverage weapons transfers to try to force a change in Israel’s behavior.
A second U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, described the move as a “shot across the bow” intended to underscore to Israeli leaders the seriousness of U.S. concerns about the offensive in Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are massed in camps near Gaza’s border with Egypt.
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By: John Hudson
2:10 AM: U.S. says gaps between Israel and Hamas can be closed in negotiations
The United States believes that negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage-release deal “should be able to close the remaining gaps” between Israel and Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
“Everybody is coming to the table,” including delegations from both Israel and Hamas, Kirby said of talks being held in Cairo. “That’s not insignificant. … We believe that where we see the text right now, we see no reason why they can’t overcome those remaining gaps.”
Asked how Hamas’s insistence that any cease-fire be permanent could be reconciled with Israel’s position that it would agree only to a temporary pause in fighting to secure the release of hostages, Kirby said: “I really don’t want to get into talking about the specific parameters. … At this very delicate stage, this very sensitive time, and where we are with the negotiations, I think it’s best to let the negotiators hammer out the existing gaps.”
Kirby added that the Biden administration remains concerned about a possible major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, though he acknowledged that Israel has communicated that its current operation, which began Monday night, “is an operation of limited scope, scale and duration and aimed at cutting off Hamas’s ability to ship arms across the Rafah border.” He said it was “absolutely critical” that Israel allow the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, a major humanitarian aid artery that Israel has now closed, to be “opened up as soon as possible.”
President Biden, in his Monday conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, emphasized the need to also reopen the nearby Israeli crossing at Kerem Shalom, which Israel closed after a Hamas attack last weekend.
By: Karen DeYoung