Navigating the rescue of hostages,which include women,children and elderly people,could be even more complicated — a Hamas leader toldTheNew York Times not all the Israeli hostages were being held by them.
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Other groups,including Palestinian Islamic Jihad,were also holding some of the hostages,Osama Hamdan said.
Fiery protests calling for an immediate ceasefire have continued to erupt in Arab nations across the Middle East,fuelled by outrage over Tuesday’s blast atAl Ahli Arab Hospital that killed hundreds.
Conflicting analyses of the blast continue to emerge with Al Jazeera’s Sanad Agency challenging Israel’s claim it was a Hamas rocket that misfired. The agency suggested on Friday that video of the explosion was consistent with Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system intercepting a missile fired from the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian officials blamed the explosion on an Israeli airstrike,while the United States has supported Israeli intelligence suggesting it was the result of an errant rocket from a Palestinian group.
In Jordan,which responded to the blast by abruptly cancelling regional crisis talks with US President Joe Biden this week,the country’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters in Amman that “all the indications are that the worst is coming”.
Jordan will be among Middle East countries represented this weekend at the Cairo Peace Summit to discuss the worsening conflict. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will attend the talks,along with representatives from Greece,Italy,Germany and Japan.
Adva Adar holds family photos,including one of her 85-year-old grandmother Yaffa Adar,who has been taken hostage by Hamas.Credit:Kate Geraghty
After his diplomatic dash to Tel Aviv,Biden brokered a deal between Israel and Egypt to allow 20 trucks of aid into the heavily blockaded Gaza,before returning toWashington where he said he would request more than $US100 billion ($158 billion) from Congress for the war efforts in Israel and Ukraine.
“History has taught us when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror ... they cause more chaos and death and destruction,” he said in a national address on Friday (AEDT).
“What would happen if we walked away? We are the essential nation.”
Biden has increased America’s military presence in the Middle East since the attack. The US has moved two aircraft carriers into the region,while the Pentagon on Friday said a US warship shot down three missiles and several drones in the northern Red Sea,which it said were fired from Yemen and potentially headed towards targets in Israel.
Trucks loaded with tonnes of critical food,medicine and water supplies are banked up at Egypt’s Rafah border crossing,which they are unlikely to cross until Saturdayat the earliest.
While it marks the first break in Israel’s total siege of Gaza since the fighting began,aid organisations say it is a fraction of what is needed for the 2 million civilians trapped without power and nearly exhausted essentials.
At Gaza’s second-largest hospital,doctors desperate to conserve energy have been treating patients and stitching wounds by the light of mobile phones;others were using vinegar to treat infected wounds,the Associated Press reported.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has made an urgent appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire,insisting aid is needed “at scale and on a sustained basis”. Gaza officials say more than 4100 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,000 wounded in the fighting so far.
From London to Washington,New York and Sydney,community outrage at the ballooning humanitarian crisis in Gaza is boiling over to the streets. Demonstrations across the Western world have also called for an urgent ceasefire,while others rallied for the release of Israeli hostages.
After several hundred people gathered in Lakemba for Friday prayers and a vigil supporting Palestine,up to 10,000 protesters are expected to join a rally through Sydney’s CBD on Saturday. A further 17 “public assembly events” are scheduled across Sydney over the next week.
Albanese on Friday sought to quell tensions across his party aftertwo government ministers accused Israel of collectively punishing Palestinians for the atrocities of Hamas.
Protesters during a rally for the release of hostages in Gaza held by Hamas operatives in Times Square.Credit:Bloomberg
He said the entire Labor caucus,joined by the Coalition,“unequivocally condemned Hamas for the atrocities that it committed as a terrorist organisation with its invasion of Israel”.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said he was “confident that with good faith” the Sydney protest would be peaceful after thousands took part in a largely uneventful rally in Hyde Park the previous weekend.