Aid trucks wait at the Rafah border crossing into hungry Gaza: NPR

Aid convoys waited on Thursday at the Rafah border crossing to obtain permission to enter Gaza.

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Aid convoys waited on Thursday at the Rafah border crossing to obtain permission to enter Gaza.

Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images

TEL AVIV, Israel – With aid trucks waiting on one side, and more than two million Palestinians facing food, water and medicine shortages on the other, all eyes on Friday were watching the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza to see if an agreement would be reached to deliver aid. Relief will hold up.

After the White House announced the agreement earlier this week to allow 20 truckloads of aid into Gaza, negotiations over the logistics of the delivery continued into Friday morning — in part to address Israel’s concerns about how to keep aid out of Hamas’ hands. The Gaza-based militant group whose deadly surprise attack on Israel earlier this month sparked the current hostilities.

A UN spokesman told Reuters on Friday that initial aid deliveries were scheduled to begin “in the next day or so.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who arrived at the Egyptian side of the border crossing on Friday, called for aid to be allowed into Gaza as soon as possible.

Guterres said in a press conference: “Civilians in Gaza lack all necessities of life.” “I call for a humanitarian ceasefire in order to deliver aid to Gaza.”

In a press conference in front of the Rafah border crossing on Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire so aid can be delivered to Gaza.

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In a press conference in front of the Rafah border crossing on Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire so aid can be delivered to Gaza.

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Air strikes continue as the situation in Gaza deteriorates

Gaza has been under a complete blockade by Israel since the days following the October 7 attacks, in which 1,400 people were killed, according to Israeli officials.

Israeli officials say the blockade is necessary to eliminate Hamas, which rules Gaza, and will not allow aid to enter through Israeli border crossings until Hamas releases nearly 200 hostages captured during the offensive.

The population of Gaza faces an increasingly severe humanitarian crisis. The main power plant, water desalination plants and sanitation facilities in the region stopped working for several days. United Nations reports. Palestinian officials say near-constant Israeli air strikes have destroyed thousands of homes and killed more than 4,100 people.

Aid must be inspected, and Egypt is raising its concerns

On a short trip to Israel this week, President Biden worked to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to allow aid in.

Both countries have expressed concerns: Israel has asked for guarantees that Hamas will not divert aid or use trucks to smuggle weapons, and has asked UN staff to inspect trucks before they enter Gaza. Egypt said that it would reject the mass displacement of Palestinian refugees across its borders.

As of Friday, about 200 trucks were waiting on the Egyptian side of the border, according to the United Nations, with more aid stored in the Egyptian city of Arish, about 30 miles from the Gaza border.

American citizens are among those trapped in Gaza

Among those anxiously awaiting the border status announcement were hundreds of American citizens trapped in Gaza since the outbreak of war.

One of them, Wafa Abu Zaida, who lives in Massachusetts, was visiting her family in Gaza when the war started earlier this month.

Like many people in Gaza, Abu Zaida, along with her husband and one-year-old son Youssef, moved south toward Rafah after Israel urged people to evacuate from the northern half of Gaza.

She said it wasn’t safe. Israeli air strikes continued on the southern Gaza Strip.

She added that on Thursday evening, a nearby building was bombed, resulting in a window being shattered while her son was sleeping nearby. “I immediately pulled him into a hug. He was terrified. He was looking at me, not knowing what was going on,” she said. “We are not safe here.”

People gather in front of a damaged building after a raid by Israeli forces on the Palestinian Nour Shams camp in the occupied West Bank.

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People gather in front of a damaged building after a raid by Israeli forces on the Palestinian Nour Shams camp in the occupied West Bank.

Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images

There was no indication whether American citizens would be allowed to leave if the Rafah crossing was opened to allow aid in.

In the occupied West Bank, tensions escalated overnight after a confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the Nour Shams refugee camp northeast of Tel Aviv, near the region’s border with Israel.

The United Nations said that an Israeli air strike and an exchange of fire between Israeli police and Palestinians followed an Israeli search and arrest operation in the camp. The Israeli army said that “a number of terrorists” were killed in counter-terrorism operations. Palestinian health officials reported that at least 11 people were killed. Israeli media reported the killing of an Israeli policeman.

In all, at least 80 people have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces since the war began earlier this month, according to Palestinian officials.

Additional reporting by Nina Kravinsky of NPR in Jerusalem.