Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes on Thursday and Egypt took steps to let in aid, as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak followed U.S. President Joe Biden on visits to demonstrate Western support for the war against Hamas.
Sunak borrowed a phrase associated with British wartime leader Winston Churchill, pledging to stand by Israel “in its darkest hour” following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas gunmen who killed 1,400 Israelis.
Israel has responded to the deadliest attack in its 75-year history by vowing to annihilate Hamas, putting the entire Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people under a total siege, and bombarding the enclave in strikes that have killed thousands and made more than a million homeless.
Western countries have tried to balance their support for Israel with calls to ease the plight of Gazans, but Sunak’s emphasis was firmly on the former.
“Above all, I’m here to express my solidarity with the Israeli people. You have suffered an unspeakable, horrific act of terrorism and I want you to know that the United Kingdom and I stand with you,” Sunak told reporters after landing in Tel Aviv hours after Biden left.
Later appearing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said: “We will stand with you in solidarity. We will stand with your people. And we also want you to win.”
Biden flew home on Wednesday night after an eight-hour visit, having pledged to stand with Israel but achieving only limited success in his mission to get aid to Gaza.
The second half of his itinerary – a planned meeting with Arab allies – was called off in response to a blast at a Gaza hospital, which Palestinians called an Israeli air strike but Israel said was caused by a failed rocket launch by militants. Biden backed the Israeli account.
Biden said he had secured a deal to allow 20 aid trucks to reach Gaza from Egypt in coming days, still a fraction of the 100 per day that U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council were needed.
Two Egyptian security sources said equipment was sent on Thursday through the crossing to repair roads on the Gaza side for aid to cross. More than 100 trucks were waiting on the Egyptian side although none was expected to cross before Friday.
Israel said it would allow limited aid to reach Gaza from Egypt, but only provided none of it benefited Hamas. It repeated its position that it would open its own checkpoints to let in aid only when all of the more than 200 hostages captured by the gunmen were set free.
And it made clear there would be no let-up in its bombing campaign: “In the Gaza Strip, every place where Hamas has touched or is touching will be struck and destroyed,” a colonel identified as the commander of Israel’s Ramat David air base told public broadcaster Kan.
‘THEY KILLED CHILDREN!’
According to Palestinian health officials, the toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza has risen to more than 3,500 dead and more than 12,000 wounded.
In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip men rushed to the main Nasser hospital carrying dead and wounded children in their arms, in ambulances and the back of a flatbed truck after a bomb struck a house in broad daylight.
Medics said four people were killed and many wounded, mainly displaced children from northern Gaza who had been playing soccer in a lot next door.
“I saw body parts, dismembered children, what shall I describe to you?” said Hassan Al-Hindi, a neighbour who saw the strike. “They killed children,” he cried. “I have never seen anything like it. They are killing children!”
Gaza residents scoffed at the gesture of promising just 20 truckloads of aid for 2.3 million people cut off from food, water, fuel and medical supplies.
“We want nothing from Arab and foreign countries except to stop the violent bombardment on our houses,” said El-Awad El-Dali, 65, speaking near the rubble of ruined homes.
In another area, a shopping district was reduced to rubble as far as the eye could see, with a toddler’s pink cot overturned on the ground, windows blown off a clothing store and damaged vehicles.
“I’m over 70 years old, I’ve lived through several wars, it’s never been like this, it has never been this brutal,” said Rafat Al-Nakhala, who had come there after obeying Israel’s order for civilians to flee Gaza City in the north.
Elsewhere in Khan Younis, a man kissed the body of a small baby wrapped in a shroud before it was lowered into a grave. Mourners said four small children were buried there and three at another site, among a family, killed when a three-storey building was hit.
In Gaza’s north, footage obtained by Reuters from the Jabaliya refugee camp showed residents digging with their bare hands inside a damaged building to free a small boy and girl trapped under masonry. The body of a man was hauled out of the ruins on a stretcher as residents tried to light up the site with their mobile phones.
The United Nations says around half of Gazans have been made homeless, still trapped inside the enclave, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
The plight of Gazans has enraged the Middle East, making it harder for Biden and other Western leaders to rally Arab allies to prevent the war from spreading.
Sunak was due to travel after Israel to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who had been on the brink of agreeing to normalise relations with Israel before the Hamas attack.
Before Biden left, he made a plea for Israelis to rein in their wrath: “While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
