Media reports on Monday suggested that the US, Israel and Egypt had agreed on a truce to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah border. However, this was denied by the office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The war between Israel and the Hamas militants entered its 10th day on Monday and is expected to escalate further. The Israeli Army has vowed to “demolish Hamas” as the troops prepared to move into the Gaza Strip in pursuit of Hamas militants whose deadly rampage through Israeli border towns on October 7 shocked the world.
The war has claimed over 3,900 lives since it began last Saturday. These include around 1,300 Israelis and 2,670 Palestinians. Israel had urged Palestinians to evacuate to the southern area of the Gaza City enclave ahead of an expected Israel ground offensive against the terror attacks, which hundreds of thousands have done after leaving Gaza City, home to about half the region’s more than 2 million people
Several dozen United States citizens and their spouses wait to board an evacuation ship at the port of Haifa. The queue this morning follows a security alert issued Sunday by the US Embassy in Jerusalem for citizens seeking to leave the country. Due to flight cancelations in connection with the fighting between Israel and Hamas, US citizens and their first-degree relatives were invited to come to Haifa Port and board a vessel bound for Cyprus, where they would board flights to the United States.
