Israel-Hamas war live: Egypt-Gaza crossing to open for aid on Friday at the earliest, says White House

Rafah crossing to open for aid: what we know

Here is what we know about the desperately-needed aid being allowed into Gaza.

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Here are some recent pictures:

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on 18 October 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Photograph: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty ImagesBakery staff prepare bread packages as to cater for Palestinians queueing outside in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 18 October 2023. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty ImagesResidents of Gaza City evacuate in a car as Israel continues airstrikes of the Gaza strip, 18 October 2023. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPAPeople, holding flags and shouting slogans, gather for a protest athe explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, on 18 October 2023 in Hebron, West Bank. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu/Getty ImagesFireworks explode near a police vehicle as demonstrators rally to show support for the Palestinian people following the Gaza City hospital blast, on 18 October 2023, in Berlin. Photograph: Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP/Getty Images

AFP: Biden, asked by journalists about reports that his administration had told Israel that US forces would fight alongside Israeli troops in response to any attack by the powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah against Israel, said this was “not true.”

However, he said that “our military is talking with their military about what the alternatives are” in the event of a Hezbollah attack.

China’s President Xi Jinping has meanwhile met with Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

Here is more of what Biden said about the opening of the Rafah border crossing, via AFP:

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “agreed to… let up to 20 trucks through to begin with,” Biden told reporters after calling Sisi from Air Force One while returning from a visit to Israel, where he was showing solidarity over the 7 October Hamas attacks.

The shipment would likely not cross until Friday, as the road at the crossing needed repairs, Biden said.

“They’re going to patch the road. They have to fill in potholes to get these trucks through. And that’s going to occur – they expect it’ll take about eight hours tomorrow,” he said.

The first 20 trucks will be a test of a system for distributing aid without allowing the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which controls Gaza, to benefit, the US president said.

The United Nations is set to distribute aid on the Gaza side of the border.

“If Hamas confiscates it or doesn’t let it get through or just confiscates it, then it’s going to end, because we’re not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas if they’re going to be confiscating it. That’s the commitment that I’ve made,” Biden said.

He added that the 20 trucks represented a “first tranche,” but “150 or something” trucks are waiting in total. Whether the rest are allowed to cross will depend on “how it goes.”

He said he had instead talked to Sisi from Air Force One for about half an hour.

“The bottom line is that he (Sisi) deserves some real credit because he was very accommodating,” the US president added.

Biden characterised his trip to the war zone as a success and said that while expressing US support for ally Israel, he was “very blunt with the Israelis” on the need to allow aid into Gaza.

“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,” he said.

Updated at 21.59 EDT

What is the Rafah border crossing?

Egypt has agreed to allow aid to pass through the Rafah border crossing to Gaza. Rafah is in Egypt’s Sinai region. It is also the only exit point for Gaza residents seeking to flee their home.

Foreign passport holders are expected to be allowed out under any deal to reopen the crossing, and have therefore headed in recent days to the vicinity, seeking to exit.

But Egypt is wary of insecurity near the border with Gaza in northeastern Sinai, where it faced an Islamist insurgency that peaked after 2013 and has now largely been suppressed.

Despite telling people to flee Gaza City for the south, which includes Rafah, Israel has launched airstrikes on buildings in Rafah in recent days.

Biden said Egypt’s president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscates aid, “it will end,” he said. The aid will start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.

Egypt must still repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes.

More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, said the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.

Palestinian girl rescues her cat from the rubble of destroyed buildings after Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, 18 October 2023. Photograph: Hatem Ali/AP

Since Hamas took control in Gaza in 2007, Egypt has helped enforce a blockade of the enclave and heavily restricted the flow of people and goods. Like the main crossings with Israel, restrictions have sometimes been eased but not lifted, and travellers need security clearance and lengthy checks to pass. In 2008, tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed into Sinai after Hamas blasted holes in border fortifications, prompting Egypt to build a stone and cement wall.

Egypt has acted as a mediator between Israel and Palestinian factions during past conflicts and periods of unrest. But in those situations it has also locked down the border, allowing aid to enter and medical evacuees to leave but preventing any large-scale movement of people.

Even as Israel pursues its heaviest and most unrelenting bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas assault, Egypt has shown no sign so far that its approach will change. More than 2,800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombing strikes.

That update is over.

The IDF is now delivering its update, which appears to be focused on the explosion at al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital on Tuesday. We will bring you any relevant new information.

So far IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus is repeating claims previously released by the IDF, including what Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital, he said. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a large crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

We’re not sure why the IDF update seems to be delayed by half an hour, but we’ll bring it to you when it starts.

More now from Biden’s meeting with Netanyahu and Israeli defence officials.

Axios reports that when the US president “pressed officials about their overall strategy in Gaza — namely, what Israel’s plan for the enclave would be after the war”, they said that they weren’t “there yet” and were focussed on the counteroffensive.

Residents and doctors in Khan Younis, a town southern Gaza – the area to which the IDF said people in Gaza City should flee – said an airstrike slammed into a home, killing seven small children, the Associated Press reports.

The news spread quickly on social media, as images of dead and bloodied toddlers lined up side by side on a hospital stretcher stirred outrage in Gaza and the West Bank.

Bandaged and caked in dust, the bodies were brought to the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis along with three other dead members of the Bakri family. Photographers entered the operation room as women covered their eyes and doctors wept.

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli raids in the southern Gaza Strip on 18 October 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Photograph: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

“This is a massacre,” hospital director Dr. Yousef Al-Akkad said, his voice choking with emotion. “Let the world see, these are just children.”

Local medics also confirmed that the children were killed in a strike and said the Bakri family was just one of many such cases Wednesday.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.