Egypt agrees to allow first aid trucks into Gaza as Palestinians reel from hospital blast

Egypt has agreed to allow aid trucks into Gaza, as anger rises globally over Israel’s siege of the isolated enclave in response to the brutal, coordinated Hamas attacks nearly two weeks ago.

The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israel has sparked growing protests across the Middle East and heightened fears that the war could spiral into a wider regional conflict.

Speaking on his way back from a visit to Israel, United States President Joe Biden said his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had agreed to open the Rafah Crossing into Gaza for humanitarian aid – the only one not controlled by Israel.

Up to 20 trucks from an aid convoy waiting for days at the closed border gate would be allowed into Gaza, said Biden. The roads near the crossing, pocked with craters from Israeli airstrikes, will have to be fixed before the trucks can pass, Biden said. He added that work could be done over eight hours on Thursday before the first aid deliveries on Friday.

“We’re negotiating with the parties to make sure that we can get humanitarian goods going in and right now we’re in the process of those negotiations. We’re trying to get them in as soon as can,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told CNN on Wednesday.

It’s also not clear how much of an impact the initial delivery will make for Gazan civilians caught up in a humanitarian catastrophe that the World Health Organization says is spiraling out of control and impacting hundreds of thousands of people.

“We hope it’s not a non-starter,” regional WHO representative Richard Brennan said Thursday of the aid deal, adding that there were “a lot of complexities to getting this aid operation going.”

“This is not a sprint. This is just the start. This is a marathon. An absolute marathon,” he said, adding that the goal was to get up to 100 trucks of aid distributed per day.

“We’re hearing figures now that suddenly people only have three liters of clean water per person per day, said Brennan, adding that at “absolute minimum” people need 15 liters for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene.

Located in Egypt’s north Sinai, the Rafah Crossing is the sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. It falls along an 8-mile (12.8-kilometer) fence that separates Gaza from the Sinai desert, and has been tightly controlled on each side of the border for years.

The decision to open the crossing followed several days of deliberations, despite pressure from the US that Egypt do so. Egypt initially said it won’t allow refugees to flood its territory, has instead insisted that Israel allow it to deliver aid to Gazans, and expressed concerns that Israeli air strikes could hit aid convoys.

The talks between the two leaders focused “on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and ways to facilitate the implementation of humanitarian aid,” according to a statement from the Egyptian president’s office.

 

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Gaza conditions a ‘complete catastrophe,’ official warns as Israel prepares for offensive

Conditions in Gaza have deteriorated into a “complete catastrophe,” according to one official, with serious shortages of clean water and food as tens of thousands of Palestinians attempt to flee crippling airstrikes and an Israeli ground offensive.

Israel’s military said Saturday its forces are readying for the next stages of the war, including “combined and coordinated strikes from the air, sea and land” in response to the unprecedented October 7 terrorist attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls the enclave.

At least 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Sunday, in what US President Joe Biden described as “the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

Further escalation of the long-running conflict increasingly risks spilling over regionally, prompting the Pentagon to order a second carrier strike group and squadrons of fighter jets to the region as a deterrence to Iran and Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The clock is ticking for residents fleeing south through the battered streets of Gaza after the Israeli military told civilians to leave northern areas of the densely populated strip.

More than half of Gaza’s 2 million residents live in the northern section that Israel said should evacuate. Many families, some of whom were already internally displaced, are now crammed into an even smaller portion of the 140-square-mile territory.

Civilians packed into cars, taxis, pickup trucks and donkey-pulled carts. Roads were filled with snaking lines of vehicles strapped with suitcases and mattresses. Those without other options walked, carrying what they could.

“We will commence significant military operations only once we see that civilians have left the area,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN early Sunday. “I cannot stress more than enough to say now is the time for Gazans to leave.”

Meanwhile, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN Sunday that the military was seeing a “strong flow” of people moving out of northern Gaza.

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Israel announces 6-hour window for Gazans fleeing south, as troops gather near border

Israel’s military has announced a six-hour window for Palestinians to flee south along specified streets within Gaza, as tens of thousands leave their homes following a stark evacuation order ahead of a possible Israeli ground assault.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned more than 1 million residents in northern Gaza to evacuate on Friday, as it massed troops and military equipment at the border, and continued bombarding the territory with relentless airstrikes in response to the deadly October 7 attacks by Islamist militant group Hamas.

Even before the warning, more than 400,000 Palestinians had already been internally displaced by the past week of fighting as conditions worsen inside the bombarded strip.

But the evacuation order and the prospect of a potential incursion have been sharply criticized by rights groups, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head, who warned that such a move could bring “catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”

The IDF announced on Saturday it would allow people to move south “for their own safety” on specified streets of Gaza from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, according to a statement shared by the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson Avishay Adraee on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The IDF claimed Hamas leaders had already taken measures to protect themselves from strikes in the area.

It is unclear how widely the messaging has been received on the ground given the current electricity and internet blackout.

When asked by CNN how this six-hour window has been communicated to citizens in Gaza, IDF spokesperson Maj. Doron Spielman said that “everybody in Gaza City now knows exactly what’s happening.”

“They’ve been notified in Arabic, in multiple languages on every available platform, both electronic and non-electronic platforms. Everyone in Gaza City knows that they need to go past Wadi Gaza.”

Spielman confirmed the IDF had dropped leaflets informing people in Gaza about the IDF’s announcement.

However, CNN has talked to a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school official, a paramedic and a journalist on the ground who were all unaware of this latest advisory on Saturday.

Meanwhile, CNN has geolocated and authenticated five videos from the scene of a large explosion along one of the evacuation routes for civilians south of Gaza City.

The videos show many dead bodies amid a scene of extensive destruction. Some of those bodies are on a flat-bed trailer that appears to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. They include several children. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.

It’s unclear what caused the widespread devastation; the explosion occurred on Salah al-Deen Street on Friday afternoon.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on any airstrikes in the same location.

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What would an Israeli ground assault in Gaza look like? Here’s what I know from the one I saw

“Get down!” the medic in the front seat hissed as our ambulance approached the Israeli checkpoint.

I could see through the front window tanks by the side of the road, nervous Israeli soldiers raising their guns as we approached.

This was January 2009 and the CNN crew had caught a ride with a convoy of ambulances going from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip toward Gaza City along the coastal road. The medics allowed us to come along on the condition we hid on their stretchers.

This was what Israel had dubbed “Operation Cast Lead,” the first in a series of flare-ups of various durations between Israel and Gaza in 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2022. The ongoing operation in Gaza was preceded by another one this May.

After a brief exchange with the medics in the lead ambulance, the soldiers waved us through without inspecting the ambulances.

It was the deepest Israeli ground operation into Gaza since the withdrawal from the Strip in 2005. Then, Israeli troops largely avoided the most built up and crowded areas, particularly Gaza’s eight crammed refugee camps. They were well aware that entering into the narrow alleys of camps like al-Shati, one of the most crowded, would be risky. Their focus was on controlling the periphery of urban areas.

Israel’s tactics have always been to move fast, control as much territory as possible, but avoid street-to-street, house-to-house fighting where a weaker opponent can take full advantage of the terrain. Entering urban areas in Gaza, however, would bring in an entire new element to the fight.

At the moment Israeli forces are engaged with Hamas. But Gaza is home to a myriad of armed Palestinian groups, including Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) to name just a few. They don’t have Hamas’ manpower or weaponry, but they’re numerous enough to put up serious resistance.

In March 2008, I went to Gaza to cover an Israeli incursion into the north, this time dubbed “Hot Winter,” yet another attempt to stop rocket fire from Gaza. At the time, Hamas was in full control of the Gaza Strip, having expelled the rival Fatah faction the previous year. But when I arrived in the area where Israeli forces were trying to advance, it wasn’t Hamas fighters but rather gunmen from the PFLP who were running street battles with Israeli troops. They ducked in and out of alleyways, sprinted across streets with rocket propelled grenade launchers and Kalashinkov assault rifles. The young men were almost giddy with excitement. They finally had a chance to fight Israeli troops on their own ground. Eventually, the Israelis pulled out. The rocket fire continued.

Going back to the summer of 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon in pursuit of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Israeli forces made it all the way to Beirut then stopped on the outskirts, establishing a siege much along the lines announced Monday by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. It was clear even back then that entering Beirut, particularly the Palestinian refugee camps, would be a deadly mission for all.

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‘Nowhere to go’: Ordinary Palestinians live in fear as Israel retaliates against Hamas

When the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel Saturday morning, Palestinians living in the besieged strip had mixed feelings.

Some celebrated, taking pride in what they perceived as a victory against Israel. Others, however, were afraid, dreading a deadly retaliation.

The militant group’s unprecedented incursion prompted vows of retribution from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared on Saturday that his country was at war, pledging a “mighty vengeance for this black day.”

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that more than 600 people have been killed in Israel, and that the death toll is likely to rise.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Sunday that Israel destroyed around 800 targets in Gaza, including launching pads used by Hamas. The Palestinian health ministry said 370 Palestinians were killed there, and 2,200 others injured.

No strangers to war with Israel, many Gazans are sheltering in their homes, with the vast majority lacking access to bunkers. The territory is one of the most densely populated places on earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square

Those who venture out do so only to complete essential errands, or to look for their missing in the carnage of Israeli strikes. The streets are damaged and covered with rubble, and the air smells of dust and gunpowder.

Salim Hussein, 55, lost his home when his building was targeted in an Israeli airstrike. He lived on the first floor and told CNN that he and his family were given warnings by Israel just moments before the building was struck.

Hussein said he did not know why the tower was struck. He had moved in with his family just five months ago.

“We left (the tower) only with the clothes we had on,” he told CNN, adding that he and his family now have nothing left and nowhere to go.

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No military targets in Ukraine village hit by ‘inhuman’ Russian missile strike, officials say

There were no military targets in the village that was hit by a Russian missile strike Thursday, a top Ukrainian police official said, in what was one of the deadliest attacks against civilians since the conflict began and which the country’s president called “inhuman” and “deliberate.”

Moscow’s forces targeted a cafe and a shop in Hroza, near the eastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, with what Ukrainian officials say was a powerful Iskander ballistic missile, killing at least 52 people, including a 6-year-old boy.

Scenes emerged of emergency workers wading through dense rubble in the aftermath of the strike – a scale of devastation not seen since a Russian attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk in early 2022 killed more than 60 people.

The death toll in such a small community of 330 people means one in every six residents was killed.

“All the people are local residents, all the people are civilians. Not a single military object, not a single military vehicle. All the dead and wounded people are civilians,” Sergey Bolvinov, the chief investigator with Kharkiv’s regional police, told CNN in Hroza.

Investigators and forensic teams worked through the night sifting through the rubble and trying to count and identify the bodies, many of which were in bad condition due to the force of the blast, according to a CNN team at the scene.

A local man whose wife died in the strike could be seen crouching over her body, too shaken to speak and unable to leave her side. He later helped emergency services lift her body onto a truck to be taken away.

Bolvinov said the bodies of 35 victims have been identified so far.

“I am convinced that in the future this will give us a basis to collect all the evidence and bring the guilty Russian military to justice,” he said, adding that the attack was being investigated as a “violation of the laws and customs of war.”

The number of injured remained at six, Oleh Syniehubov, the head of Kharkiv region’s military administration, said Friday in a post on Telegram.

On Friday, fresh Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv killed a child, whose body was found under the rubble of a residential building, according to the city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov, who added that the strikes had been “aimed exclusively at the civilian infrastructure.”

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Scientists discover ‘best problem’ as they open up asteroid sample

Scientists have taken their first glimpse of a sample collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu — and stumbled upon a good bit more than they expected.

When they opened the canister containing the sample on September 26, the researchers discovered an abundance of dark, fine-grained material on the inside of the container’s lid and base surrounding the mechanism used to collect the extraterrestrial rocks and soil. That unexpected debris could reveal key insights about the asteroid before the primary sample is analyzed.

The sample’s historic landing in the Utah desert September 24 marked the culmination of NASA’s 7-year OSIRIS-Rex mission, which traveled to Bennu some 200 million miles (320 million kilometers) from Earth, touched down on the asteroid and then flew back by Earth for the sample drop. (Total trip distance: some 3.86 billion miles.)

The mission team whisked away the canister the day after its arrival to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, which has a clean room specially built for careful analysis of the cosmic sample.

What the Bennu sample could reveal

Asteroids are remnants from the formation of the solar system, offering insights into what those chaotic, early days were like as the planets formed and settled into place. But near-Earth asteroids also pose a threat to our planet, so understanding their composition and orbits is key to unlocking the best ways to deflect space rocks on a collision course with Earth.

When OSIRIS-REx briefly used its TAGSAM, or Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head, to disturb the surface of Bennu and collect a sample in October 2020, it gathered so much material that particles could be seen slowly drifting off into space before the head was stowed in the canister.

This led scientists to believe they might be able to do a quick analysis of any material they discovered upon opening the canister — and there’s plenty of it before they even reach the bulk of the sample, located within the mechanism head, which means the scientists will need to take their time to collect all of the material.

“The very best ‘problem’ to have is that there is so much material, it’s taking longer than we expected to collect it,” said Christopher Snead, deputy OSIRIS-REx curation lead, in a statement.

“There’s a lot of abundant material outside the TAGSAM head that’s interesting in its own right. It’s really spectacular to have all that material there.”

The actual asteroid sample won’t be revealed until October 11 in a live NASA broadcast. The TAGSAM head will be moved to a new specialized glovebox for careful disassembly, unveiling the sample inside.

Meanwhile, the quick-look analysis of a sample taken from outside the TAGSAM head is underway, and it could offer initial findings from the material collected from Bennu.

“We have all the microanalytical techniques that we can throw at this to really, really tear it apart, almost down to the atomic scale,” said Lindsay Keller, OSIRIS-REx sample analysis team member, in a statement.

The team will use scanning electron microscopes, X-rays and infrared instruments for a first examination of the material collected from Bennu.

Together, the instruments will provide scientists with an understanding of the sample’s chemical composition, detect any hydrated minerals or organic particles, and reveal any abundance of specific types of minerals present on the asteroid.

“You’ve got really top-notch people and instruments and facilities that are going to be hitting these samples,” Keller said.

The initial analysis will help researchers have a better idea of what to expect from the bulk sample collected from Bennu.

Scientists believe that asteroids like Bennu might have delivered necessary elements such as water to Earth early in our planet’s formation — and studying the pristine sample could answer lingering questions about the origins of our solar system.

Meanwhile, the spacecraft that delivered the sample, now named OSIRIS-APEX, is on its way to study the near-Earth asteroid Apophis, which will come close enough to Earth in 2029 to be seen by the naked eye.

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