The US and Israel announce agreement to allow food and medicine from Egypt into Gaza

The United States and Israel have announced an agreement to allow food and medicine to start flowing from Egypt into southern Gaza as long as it is used exclusively to provide relief to the civilian population. The announcement came at the end of U.S. President Joe Biden’s whirlwind visit to Israel, which was his first to the country during wartime and was marked by the massacre caused by an explosion in a Gaza hospital a day earlier.

No mention was made of allowing fuel back into the Gaza Strip, where the only existing power plant has been inoperative for days. Hospitals also need fuel for their generators, and pumps require it for water extraction. Israel will continue to block all supplies, such as electricity, coming from its territory as long as there are Israeli hostages in Gaza.

“In light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted. Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip as long as our abductees are not returned,” said a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

In his remarks in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Biden said that any attempts by Hamas to steal the aid would illustrate it has “no concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people.” Cairo has not yet commented on the existence of the agreement.

Ever since the U.S. president landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning and up until the announcement, the media focus had been on what Joe Biden would say about the deadly explosion at Al-Ahli hospital that killed at least 471 people the day before. Gaza Strip authorities have attributed the attack to an Israeli military aircraft missile, while Israel points to a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad that missed its target.

Standing next to Netanyahu on Wednesday, Biden spoke about the hospital blast, describing himself as “deeply saddened and outraged” by the massacre, while supporting Israel’s version that it had nothing to do with the blast. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” he said, adding that there were “a lot of people out there” who weren’t sure what caused a blast that has sparked protests throughout the Middle East. Biden later said that his conclusion was based on data shown to him by the U.S. Defense Department. No international organization has been able to independently verify the origin of the explosion.

The 3,478 Palestinians killed and 11,000 wounded in 12 days of Israeli airstrikes have not made a dent in America’s support for Israel. Speaking on Wednesday, Biden spoke about the attack by Hamas on October 7, when thousands of armed men crossed from Gaza into Israel, killed around 1,300 people (most of them at an open-air music festival) and abducted at least 199 more. He reiterated his support for Israel (“you are not alone”) and said he would ask Congress for an “unprecedented” aid package for the country.

Biden, however, also underscored Washington’s official position about the need for a two-state solution to resolve the Middle East conflict, and announced $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank. Privately, Biden reportedly asked Netanyahu tough questions as a “friend of Israel,” according to a message posted on X, formerly Twitter. The questions deal with Israel’s plans moving forward, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, Reuters reported. Washington has already stationed two groups of aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean as a message to Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah due to the possibility of a new front opening up on Israel’s border with Lebanon, where there have already been skirmishes.

The hospital massacre has transformed Biden’s trip. First, because the visit was not initially going to be limited to Israel but also included Jordan, where the U.S. president was scheduled to hold a four-way meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan and with the presidents of Egypt, Abdelfatah al Sisi, and of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting, which was scrapped by King Abdullah II of Jordan, had been meant to help prevent the crisis from becoming even more regionalized and to agree on the exit through Egypt of Gazans with foreign passports and the release of at least part of the Israeli hostages held mainly by Hamas. Abbas is the representative of the Palestinians recognized by the international community, while Al Sisi and Abdullah represent the two countries bordering the Palestinian territories (Egypt with Gaza; Jordan with the West Bank). Both countries also have a peace agreement with Israel and share a fear of receiving a wave of refugees.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition