Israel-Hamas war: News on Gaza conflict

A six-truck convoy carrying humanitarian aid has reached U.N. shelters in the Jabalia region, the site of the largest refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, which has been cut off from assistance for nearly 50 days, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said Wednesday.

UNRWA and other humanitarian groups have been able to more freely receive and distribute aid resources throughout the north of the Gaza enclave — which has suffered under persistent bombardment throughout the Israeli offensive — since the start of the temporary Israel-Hamas truce late last week.

“Buildings have just been cleaved open. A mess of masonry, twisted metal and sheet iron blown everywhere. As we drove through Gaza City it was like a ghost town; all the streets were deserted. The impact of heavy airstrikes and shelling was so visible. Roads are riddled with craters, complicating aid deliveries,” said Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in the Gaza Strip.

More than 70% of the people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced by the Israel-Hamas conflict, UNRWA estimates.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The Palestinian health ministry has resumed providing dialysis services at the Noura Al-Kaabi center in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas said in a Google-translated Telegram update on Tuesday.

Specialized medical services in the Gaza Strip — particularly in the bombarded north of the enclave — have been disrupted by hostilities and fuel shortages that have depowered critical medical equipment. For weeks, multiple medical complexes in the north of the Gaza Strip have been unable to function in a hospital capacity, as a result, consigning the treatment of injured Palestinian people to the remaining medical facilities in the south of the territory.

The latest truce agreement between Israel and Hamas has allowed humanitarian assistants to bring in and distribute further fuel supplies for critical infrastructure.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Two Thai citizens were among the latest batch of hostages released by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Tuesday, alongside 10 Israeli nationals, the Israel Defense Forces said on Telegram. The captives were released in exchange for 30 Palestinian people who were freed from Israeli jails.

Groups of hostages have been released on a daily basis since the Friday start of a humanitarian pause in fighting, whose latest extension is set to lapse within a day. It remains to be seen whether Israel and Hamas will further prolong the agreement — a key objective of mediator Qatar.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven alliance released a Tuesday statement expressing support for the lengthening of a truce between Israel and Hamas, whose two-day extension is set to expire within a day.

“We support the further extension of this pause and future pauses as needed to enable assistance to be scaled up, and to facilitate the release of all hostages,” the statement said. “We underscore the importance of protecting civilians and compliance with international law, in particular international humanitarian law.”

The coalition praised the extended humanitarian pause agreement as a “crucial step” toward brokering the freedom of hostages and bringing in humanitarian aid into the besieged and resource-deprived Gaza Strip.

The G7 group reunites Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K, the U.S. and the EU. It further urged that all hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas should be released “immediately and unconditionally,” as well as emphasizing Israel’s “right to defend itself and its people, in accordance with international law, as it seeks to prevent a recurrence of the October 7 attacks.”

The statement also called on Yemen’s Houthi militants to cease maritime aggressions and released the detained Galaxy Leader vessel and its crew, seized on Nov. 19.

— Ruxandra Iordache

— Abed Rahim Khatib | Anadolu | Getty Images

— Mustafa Hassona | Anadolu | Getty Images

Israel released 30 more Palestinian hostages in Beitunia, Ramallah, West Bank to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Nov. 28.