Speaking at a news conference on Friday, National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said Israel had allowed a new delivery of fuel to arrive in Gaza for Gaza's communications system and water and sewage services. He said the deliveries are intended to prevent the spread of disease without disrupting Israel's ability to continue its war against the Hamas militant group.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
"We don't want diseases that could harm the civilians who are there and our forces. If there are diseases, the fighting would be halted. We cannot continue fighting in the event of a humanitarian crisis or an international outcry," Hanegbi said.
Hanegbi said the fuel amounted to roughly 2% to 4% of the normal quantities of fuel that entered Gaza before the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7.
Hanegbi said the War Cabinet "agreed to a special request by the United States to supply two tankers per day" for Gaza.
The War Cabinet says it agreed to the US request on the recommendation of the Shin Bet internal security agency and the army.
Video: Shifa medics evacuate patients 'with difficulty' as Israel launches raid / Credit: Reuters
The office of Israeli lawmaker and former defense minister Benny Gantz, a member of the three-person War Cabinet, said the agreement would allow 60,000 liters (15,850 gallons) of fuel to enter Gaza over the next 48 hours.
Meanwhile, Israel issued a fresh warning to Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Younis to move out of the line of fire and closer to humanitarian aid, in the latest indication that it plans to attack Hamas in south Gaza after subduing the north.
"We're asking people to relocate. I know it's not easy for many of them, but we don't want to see civilians caught up in the crossfire," Mark Regev, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC on Friday.
Such a move could compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south from the Israeli assault on Gaza City to relocate again, along with residents of Khan Younis, a city of more than 400,000.
Israel vowed to annihilate the Hamas terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip after its Oct. 7 rampage into Israel in which its fighters murdered 1,200 people and dragged 240 hostages into the enclave.
Since then, Israel has bombed much of Gaza City to rubble in places where terrorists were hiding and told the entire northern half of the narrow strip to move south.
Israel dropped leaflets over Khan Younis telling people to evacuate to shelters, suggesting military operations there were imminent.
About 26 Palestinians, mostly children, were killed in an Israeli bombardment of the city early on Saturday, the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.
Regev said Israeli troops will have to advance into the city to oust Hamas fighters from underground tunnels and bunkers but that no such "enormous infrastructure" exists in less built-up areas to the west.
"I'm pretty sure that they won't have to move again" if they move west, he said, referring to people in the area. "We're asking them to move to an area where hopefully there will be tents and a field hospital."
Because the western areas are closer to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, humanitarian aid could be brought in "as quickly as possible," Regev said.
With the war entering its seventh week, there was no sign of any let-up, despite international calls for a ceasefire or at least for humanitarian pauses.
"We have prepared ourselves for a long and sustained defense from all directions. The more time the occupation's forces stay in Gaza, the heavier their continuous losses," Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida said in a video statement.
Violence flared in the West Bank, with at least five Palestinians killed and two injured in an Israeli strike on a building in the Balata refugee camp in the central city of Nablus, the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said early on Saturday.
Amid warnings that its Gaza siege would cause starvation and disease, Israel on Friday appeared to bow to international pressure, agreeing to allow fuel trucks in and promising "no limitation" on aid requested by the United Nations.
Israel said it would allow two truckloads of fuel a day at the request of Washington to help the UN meet basic needs, and spoke of plans to increase aid more broadly.
"We will increase the capacity of the humanitarian convoys and trucks as long as there is a need," Colonel Elad Goren from COGAT, the Ministry of Defense agency that coordinates administrative issues with the Palestinians, told a briefing.
The remarks appeared to signal a shift in tone after UN agencies warned that humanitarian conditions in Gaza were rapidly deteriorating, including a stark warning from the World Food Program of the "immediate possibility of starvation".
The White House said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the fuel deliveries should "continue on a regular basis and in larger quantities."
At Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa, Israel said its forces had found a vehicle with a large number of weapons and what it called a Hamas tunnel shaft.
The facility has been a primary target of Israel's ground assault and a focus of international alarm over the deepening humanitarian crisis.
The army released a video it said showed a tunnel entrance in an outdoor area of the hospital. It appeared the area had been excavated. A bulldozer appeared in the background.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
