HUANITARIAN AID TO GAZA STEPPTED UP AND HOSTAGE TALKS ARE TAKING PLACE IN EGYPT AS WE PRESENT THE DAILY BRIEFING.
Just 48 hours after a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the importance of getting more humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip. The world leaders understand that the world is watching, and both are under pressure to get a hostage deal done while at the same take care of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The accidental attack on the members of the World Central Kitchen that killed seven members of their team seemed to be the tipping point that prompted the call from Biden to the prime minister. Israel Issued a report taking full blame for the accident and reprimanded those who were involved.
On both Sunday and Monday, a record number of 322 trucks per day carrying mostly food traveled from Israel across border to help feed the Palestinas.
Israel has established what they call Humanitarian Coordination and Deconfliction Cell, where food, medicine and other essential items can be stores safely away from Hamas and then transported to those in Gaza who need the food and other supplies. Israel has contended for months that they could provide as much aid to the citizens of Gaza as was available it was just a matter having aid workers in Gaza who could be trusted to make sure it got to those who needed it and not to Hamas.
English Daily Briefing 8.4.24 Avi Hyman from Mizmor Productions LIVE on Vimeo.
Sunday U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew was invited by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to tour the new center and to see how it works. Gallant took the opportunity to brief Lew on all the new ways, and improving on some of the old practices that Israel has implemented to streamline the ways to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Coordination and Deconfliction Cell, which opened on Tuesday, will help “facilitate the delivery of aid in a manner that will enable the IDF to continue operating against Hamas terrorism, while also ensuring the security of aid workers,” the Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
“I would like to express my appreciation to the U.S. administration for their longstanding support during this war, and for their leadership on the humanitarian issue as it pertains both to the hostage issue and to aid being delivered to Gaza,” Gallant said, according to the Israeli readout given to the press after the two men spent the afternoon together.
“We recognize the importance of facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. I have instructed the defense establishment to allocate the resources required to facilitate an influx of aid and close coordination with international organizations and key partners,” the defense minister added.
Gallant said Jerusalem was “working closely with the U.S. ambassador and U.S. officials on this issue.”
🚚322 humanitarian aid trucks were inspected and transferred to Gaza today (Apr. 7).
— COGAT (@cogatonline) April 7, 2024
This is the highest number of aid trucks transferred to Gaza in one day since the start of the war.
There is no limit to the amount of aid that can be facilitated for the civilians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/z2PXDlmTw1
In response to the Biden phone call on Friday the Prime Minister announced the opening of two new access point to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. The two new entry points are Ashdod Port for humanitarian deliveries and opening the Erez Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time since it was significantly damaged, by Hamas as they used that crossing to enter Israel on Oct. 7th to kill and take people hostage setting off the war.
Biden has been under increasing pressure from members of his own party to take a much more stern approach to sending arms to Israel in the wake of the humanitarian crisis that has broken out in Gaza. Despite that pressure Biden and his diplomatic team has worked with their counterpoints in Isael giving them advice without placing any restrictions on anything they may need.
In last week’s highly publicized call between Biden and Netanyahu, the president urged the prime minister to empower his negotiation team to make a deal on hostage releases as an “immediate ceasefire is essential” to protecting civilian life and said Israel must implement steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and the safety of aid workers.
Meanwhile, on the hostage front U.S. CIA Director Bill Burns is in Cairo Monday to talk hostage release and he brought with him some letters for each letters to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, giving them reasons to push Hamas to make a deal.
According to a member of the Biden Administration Israel and Hamas deal on the table at this point is an agreement to a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of sick, elderly and wounded hostages held by Hamas. The U.S is ready to exercise pressure on Oatar if they can’t get Hamas to a yes on the deal. The U.S. feels that there would be a ceasefire in Gaza today had Hamas simply agreed to release this vulnerable category of hostages – the sick, wounded, elderly, and young women,” the senior Biden official said.
