The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off following Hamas’s bloody rampage two weeks ago.

Just 20 trucks were allowed in, an amount that aid workers said was insufficient to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tonnes of aid have been positioned near the crossing for days.

Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. Hospitals say they are running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide power blackout.

Israel is still launching waves of airstrikes across Gaza that have destroyed entire neighbourhoods, as Palestinian militants fire rocket barrages into Israel.

The opening came after more than a week of high-level diplomacy by various mediators, including visits to the region by US President Joe Biden and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Israel had insisted that nothing would enter Gaza until Hamas released all of the captives from its October 7 attack on towns in southern Israel.

Late Friday, Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first captives to be freed.

It was not immediately clear if there was a connection between the release and the aid deliveries. Israel says Hamas is still holding at least 210 captives.

On Saturday morning, an Associated Press reporter on the Palestinian side of Rafah saw the 20 trucks heading north to Deir al-Balah, a quiet farming town where many evacuees from the north have sought shelter. Hundreds of foreign passport holders at Rafah, hoping to escape the conflict, were not allowed to leave.

The trucks were carrying 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the UN children’s agency — enough for 22,000 people for a single day, it said.

“This first, limited water will save lives, but the needs are immediate and immense,” Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said.

The World Health Organisation said four of the 20 trucks that crossed the Rafah border were carrying medical supplies, including essential supplies for 300,000 people for three months, trauma medicine and supplies for 1,200 people, and 235 portable trauma bags for first responders.

“The situation is catastrophic in Gaza,” the head of the UN’s World Food Programme, Cindy McCain, told AP.

“We need many, many, many more trucks and a continual flow of aid,” she said, adding that some 400 trucks entered Gaza daily before the war.

The Hamas-run government in Gaza also said the limited convoy “will not be able to change the humanitarian catastrophe”, calling for a secure corridor operating around the clock.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is under control”.

He said the aid would be delivered only to southern Gaza, where the army has ordered people to relocate, adding that no fuel would enter the territory.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken appealed to all sides to keep the crossing open for crucial aid shipments and warned Hamas to not take the aid.

“Palestinian civilians are not responsible for Hamas’s horrific terrorism, and they should not be made to suffer for its depraved acts,” he said in a statement.

“As President Biden stated, if Hamas steals or diverts this assistance it will have demonstrated once again that it has no regard for the welfare of the Palestinian
people.”

It will also make it hard to keep the aid flowing, Blinken said.

Guterres gave voice to growing international concern over civilians in Gaza, telling a summit in Cairo that Hamas’s “reprehensible assault” on Israel two weeks ago “can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.

Two Egyptian officials and a European diplomat said extensive negotiations with Israel and the United Nations to allow fuel deliveries for hospitals had so far yielded little progress.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release information on the sensitive deliberations.

One Egyptian official said they were discussing the release of dual-national hostages in return for the fuel, but that Israel was insisting on the release of all hostages.

AP