AP NEWS
The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let desperately needed aid flow to Palestinians running short of food, medicine and water in the territory that is under an Israeli siege.
More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid, which had been positioned near the crossing for days, began heading into Gaza.
Israel blockaded the territory and launched waves of punishing airstrikes following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.
Many in Gaza, reduced to eating one meal a day and without enough water to drink, are waiting desperately for the aid. Hospital workers were also in urgent need of medical supplies and fuel for their generators as they treat huge numbers of people wounded in the bombings. Hundreds of foreign passport holders also waited to cross from Gaza to Egypt to escape the conflict.
The opening came hours after Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first of some 200 captives to be freed after the militant group’s Oct. 7 incursion into Israel. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between the two.
The release came amid growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says is aimed at rooting out the militant group, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said Friday it does not plan to take long-term control over the tiny territory, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.
Hamas said it released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with Qatar, a Persian Gulf nation that has often served as a Mideast mediator.
The two had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on Oct. 7 when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting 203 others.
The family had heard nothing from them since the attack and were later told by U.S. and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie’s brother Ben said.
