The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let desperately needed aid flow to Palestinians running short of food, medicine and water in the territory that is under an Israeli siege.
More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tons of aid, which had been positioned near the crossing for days, began heading into Gaza.
Israel blockaded the territory and launched waves of punishing airstrikes following the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.
Read: Palestinians in Gaza feel nowhere is safe amid unrelenting Israeli airstrikes
Many in Gaza, reduced to eating one meal a day and without enough water to drink, are waiting desperately for the aid. Hospital workers were also in urgent need of medical supplies and fuel for their generators as they treat huge numbers of people wounded in the bombings. Hundreds of foreign passport holders also waited to cross from Gaza to Egypt to escape the conflict.
The opening came hours after Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first of some 200 captives to be freed after the militant group's Oct. 7 incursion into Israel. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between the two.
The release came amid growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says is aimed at rooting out the militant group, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel said Friday it does not plan to take long-term control over the tiny territory, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.
Hamas said it released Judith Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, for humanitarian reasons in an agreement with Qatar, a Persian Gulf nation that has often served as a Mideast mediator.
The two had been on a trip from their home in suburban Chicago to Israel to celebrate Jewish holidays, the family said. They were in the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, near Gaza, on Oct. 7 when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israeli towns, killing hundreds and abducting 203 others.
The family had heard nothing from them since the attack and were later told by U.S. and Israeli officials that they were being held in Gaza, Natalie’s brother Ben said.
Read: Palestinians in Gaza feel nowhere is safe amid unrelenting Israeli airstrikes
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with the two freed hostages and their relatives. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which transported the freed Americans from Gaza to Israel, said their release was “a sliver of hope.”
Relatives of other captives welcomed the release and appealed for more people to be freed.
Hamas said in a statement that it was working with mediators “to close the case" of hostages if security circumstances permit. The group added that it is committed to mediation efforts by Egypt, Qatar and other countries.
Qatar said it would continue its dialogue with Israel and Hamas in hopes of winning the release of all hostages “with the ultimate aim of de-escalating the current crisis and restoring peace.”
Associated Press reporters saw two large explosions in northern Gaza early Saturday, and rockets set off air raid sirens in a nearby Israeli town.
A potential Israeli ground assault is likely to lead to a dramatic escalation in casualties on both sides in urban fighting. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed in the war — mostly civilians slain during the Hamas incursion. Palestinian militants have continued to launch unrelenting rocket attacks into Israel — more than 6,900 projectiles since Oct. 7, according to Israel.
More than 4,100 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry run by Hamas. That includes a disputed number of people who died in a hospital explosion earlier this week.
Speaking to lawmakers about Israel’s long-term plans for Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant laid out a three-stage plan that seemed to suggest Israel did not intend to reoccupy the territory it left in 2005.
First, Israeli airstrikes and “maneuvering” — a presumed reference to a ground attack — would aim to root out Hamas. Next will come a lower intensity fight to defeat remaining pockets of resistance. And, finally, a new “security regime” will be created in Gaza along with “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip,” Gallant said.
Read: Gaza's doctors struggle to save hospital blast survivors as Middle East rage grows
Gallant did not say who Israel expected to run Gaza if Hamas is toppled or what the new security regime would entail.
Israel occupied Gaza from 1967 until 2005, when it pulled up settlements and withdrew soldiers. Two years later, Hamas took over. Some Israelis blame the withdrawal from Gaza for the five wars and countless smaller exchanges of fire since then.
The humanitarian crisis has worsened for Gaza’s civilians every day since Israel halted entry of supplies. Two days after Israel announced a deal to allow Egypt to send in aid, the border remained closed Friday as Egypt repaired the Rafah crossing, damaged by Israeli strikes.
Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza. Many heeded Israel’s orders to evacuate from north to south within the sealed-off enclave on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. But Israel has continued to bomb areas in southern Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and some appear to be going back to the north because of bombings and difficult living conditions in the south.
Gaza’s overwhelmed hospitals were rationing their dwindling resources.
Generators in Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, were operating at the lowest setting to conserve fuel while providing power to vital departments such as intensive care, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said. Others worked in darkness. The lack of medical supplies and water make it difficult to treat the mass of victims from the Israeli strikes, he said.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it had received a threat from the Israeli military to bomb Al-Quds Hospital. It said Israel has demanded the immediate evacuation of the Gaza City hospital, which has more than 400 patients and thousands of displaced civilians who sought refuge on its grounds, it said.