Aid piles up as Israel beats war drum

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Palestinians desperately awaited the first delivery of international emergency aid to Gaza on Friday, as Israeli forces pounded the enclave from the air and warned a ground invasion was coming "soon".

For 13 days, Israel has launched relentless airstrikes on the Palestinian territory in retaliation for cross-border Hamas raids that killed 1,400 people.

On Thursday, the Israeli army said it had destroyed a missile launch site and tunnels, claiming "more than 10 terrorists were eliminated".

Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said that since the bombing began, more than 3,785 Palestinians have been killed and one-third of homes have been made uninhabitable.

Citing a deepening humanitarian crisis, the international community has urged Israel to minimize civilian casualties and allow desperately needed aid to enter Gaza.

But inside Israel, the drumbeat of war has only grown louder.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rallied front-line troops near Gaza on Thursday.

Decked in body armor, he vowed that the troops would "fight like lions" and "win with full force".

In the United States on Thursday, after returning from a solidarity visit to Israel, President Joe Biden called on Congress to provide more funding for the bereaved country's war effort.

Meanwhile, Washington is on heightened alert for activity by groups with regional tensions soaring during the Israel-Hamas conflict, as officials said US troops have been repeatedly attacked in Iraq and Syria in recent days.

Biden has sent naval power to the Middle East in the past two weeks, including two aircraft carriers, other warships and about 2,000 Marines.

The country has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 more in neighboring Syria.

Near Egypt's border with Gaza, food, medicines, water purifiers and blankets have been piling up, with doubts growing that the Rafah crossing will open as planned.

"We hope there will be a crossing tomorrow," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday.

A drop in the ocean of need

"But for sure, based on the experience we had the last few days, we are also at the same time worried whether this will happen."

In Geneva, the WHO's emergencies director called the deal struck by Biden to allow in 20 trucks "a drop in the ocean of need".

"It should be 2,000 trucks," Michael Ryan said.

The United Nations' World Food Programme said it has 951 metric tons of food at or on the way to Rafah, which is enough to feed 488,000 people for one week.

But for now, it is not getting in, and the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening by the day.

In a grim sign of the depths of the crisis, the UN said efforts to identify about 100 of the dead in Gaza had been abandoned.

With refrigeration impossible, their corpses were buried in unmarked graves to prevent the risk of disease.

Entire city blocks have been leveled in Gaza, displacing more than 1 million of its 2.4 million people, the UN said.

On Thursday, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II condemned what they said was the "collective punishment" of Gazans.

They also warned about the conflict spreading, with anger across the Middle East at Israel and its Western allies.

Sisi and Abdullah, whose countries were the first Arab states to make peace with Israel in 1979 and 1994, are seen as key mediators between Israelis and Palestinians.

Intensifying cross-border fire between Israel and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon has stoked fears of a potential second front.

The US, the United Kingdom and Germany on Thursday advised their citizens to leave Lebanon while flights are still available.

Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida called for protests at Israeli and US embassies, "to have them closed and their ambassadors expelled from all Arab and Muslim countries".

The Arab world has been united in anger and condemnation of Israel since a deadly strike hit a Gaza hospital compound on Tuesday.

Both sides in the conflict have traded blame for the bloody carnage.

Agencies Via Xinhua