GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The first trucks bearing emergency humanitarian aid since Israel began a devastating siege of Gaza 12 days ago entered the enclave from Egypt on Saturday after further heavy Israeli bombardment overnight that killed dozens of Palestinians.
U.S. President Joe Biden had said earlier this week that agreement had been reached for 20 aid trucks to cross through Gaza's Rafah border point with Egypt, and said on Friday he believed those first trucks would pass through within 48 hours.
Fifteen of the 20 trucks were on the Gaza side of the heavily fortified border after checks by the Palestinian Red Crescent and were preparing to proceed to recipients in populated areas, witnesses said, after days of diplomatic wrangling over conditions for delivering the relief.
But that would only be a small fraction of what is required in Gaza, where Israel's "total siege" has left its 2.3 million people running out of food, water, medicines and fuel in what the United Nations says is a budding humanitarian catastrophe.
The United Nations said the convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received and distributed by the Palestinian Red Crescent. Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said the delivery included medicine and limited amounts of food but not fuel.
Palestinian health officials said the lack of fuel was jeopardising the lives of patients including people injured by air strikes. Fourteen medical centres have already suspended operations for want of fuel.
U.N. officials say at least 100 trucks daily are needed to cover urgent, life-saving needs and that any aid operation must be sustainable at scale - a tall order now with Israel carrying out devastating bombardments of the enclave day and night.
FIRST TWO HOSTAGES RELEASED
Israel kept up heavy bombardment of targets throughout Gaza in Saturday's early hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "fight until victory" following the release of the first two hostages by Hamas.
Hamas on Friday freed Americans Judith Tai Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, who were among around 210 kidnapped in its Oct. 7 cross-border attack on southern Israel by militants of the Islamist movement. Hamas said it acted in part "for humanitarian reasons" in response to Qatari mediation.
Hamas gunmen seized the hostages when they burst out of the blockaded enclave into Israel and killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, in a shock rampage, the deadliest single attack on Israelis since the country's founding 75 years ago.
Gaza's Health Ministry says Israel's retaliatory air and missile strikes have killed at least 4,137 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, while over a million of the besieged territory's 2.3 million people have been displaced.
Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around the small coastal enclave for a planned ground invasion with the objective of annihilating Hamas, after several inconclusive wars dating to its seizure of power there in 2007.
Overnight Israeli fighter jets struck a "large number of Hamas terror targets throughout" Gaza including command centres and combat positions inside multi-storey buildings, the military said ion a statement.
Palestinian medical officials and Hamas media said Israeli aircraft had overnight targeted several family houses across Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places, killing at least 50 people and injuring dozens.
Hamas said it fired rockets towards Israeli's biggest city Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to Israel's killing of civilians overnight. The Israeli military reported a fresh salvo of rockets from Gaza against southern Israeli border communities before dawn. There was no immediate word of any casualties.