Israel says it will allow limited aid to enter Gaza from Egypt Israel will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said. The decision was approved in light of a request from the visiting US president, Joe Biden, a statement said. In light of President (Joseph) Biden’s demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the souther Gaza Strip. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel. It is not clear when the aid will start flowing. The statement continued: Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip as long as our hostages are not returned. This is Léonie Chao-Fong in Washington taking over the live blog from Martin Belam. You can reach me at leonie.chao-fong@theguardian.com. Sunak: Gaza hospital blast "should be a watershed moment" In remarks released before the trip, Rishi Sunak said: Every civilian death is a tragedy. And too many lives have been lost following Hamas’s horrific act of terror. The attack on al-Ahli hospital should be a watershed moment for leaders in the region and across the world to come together to avoid further dangerous escalation of conflict. I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this effort. Rishi Sunak has flown to Israel for talks with its leaders, and will then travel to other countries in the region for further discussions, Downing Street has announced. The prime minister left London on Wednesday evening, and was scheduled to hold talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, on Thursday. No 10 said Sunak would then travel “to a number of other regional capitals”, details of which have not been released for security reasons, and because of the fast-changing situation in the region. Sunak will arrive a day after Joe Biden met Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. The US president had been due to then meet Arab leaders in Jordan, but this was cancelled after the devastating blast at the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, which caused hundreds of casualties. Sunak is not taking any UK media with him, but is expected to speak to reporters in the region. He will return to the UK on Friday afternoon. Separately, the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will visit Egypt, Turkey and Qatar. Rishi Sunak to visit Israel on Thursday Rishi Sunak will arrive in Israel on Thursday to meet its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and president, Isaac Herzog. The UK prime minister will press for the route into Gaza to be opened as soon as possible to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and the exit of those trapped in the territory, No 10 said. The US president, Joe Biden, will make an address regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict and the war in Ukraine on Thursday at 8pm Eastern time (000 GMT on Friday), the White House said. The political leader of Hamas in the West Bank said he believes the militant group would be willing to release some hostages if Israel were to agree to a 24-hour ceasefire. Hamas has no interest in keeping women and children hostage, and would be likely to be willing to release them and the foreign hostages if Israel agreed to a break in hostilities to allow for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, Sheik Hassan Yousef said in an interview with the Globe and Mail. We have hostages who are our guests, and we don’t have an issue with these hostages. He said that “when the circumstances allow, we will release them.” He called on the international community to negotiate a pause so that some of the hostages could be safely released. We are ready. Let it be. But the attack has to stop. The paper said it was unclear to what extent Yousef, who said he had been taken off guard by the 7 October surprise attack, was speaking for the armed wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al Qassam brigades [al-Qassam brigades]. The news that Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has agreed to open the Rafah border crossing into Gaza to allow in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid comes as people in the territory face a humanitarian crisis, more than a week after Israel imposed a “complete siege” and cut off entry of supplies to Gaza. Fears have been growing that people in Gaza are beginning to dehydrate to death as clean water runs out, while Israeli airstrikes have pounded the Palestinian territory of 2.3 million residents amid a total blockade on food, electricity, medicine and fuel. Joe Biden, speaking earlier today, said Israel had agreed to allow the opening of the Egypt-Gaza border to deliveries of desperately needed food, water and medical supplies after an 11-day total blockade on condition that the humanitarian assistance was not diverted by Hamas for its own use. Here’s a bit more from Joe Biden, who spoke to reporters after his call with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. The US president said he spoke with Sisi after his visit to Israel, where leaders there agreed to allow the aid in. Biden, speaking to reporters on Air Force One during a refueling stop in Germany on his way back from Tel Aviv, said the Egyptian leader was “completely cooperative”. President Sisi “deserves some real credit because he was accommodating”, he said. The White House has released a statement following a call between the US president, Joe Biden, and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. The two leaders “discussed ongoing coordination to deliver humanitarian assistance to Gaza and mechanisms to ensure the aid is distributed for the benefit of the civilian population”, it said. The two leaders agreed to work together closely on encouraging an urgent and robust international response to the UN’s humanitarian appeal. They agreed on the need to preserve stability in the Middle East, prevent escalation of the conflict, and set the circumstances for a durable, permanent peace in the region. Biden: Egypt"s president agrees to open Rafah crossing Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has agreed to open the Gaza border crossing to allow in 20 trucks with humanitarian aid, Joe Biden has told reporters. More details to follow … Hundreds arrested during protest at US Capitol Dharna Noor Following an outdoor rally, thousands of protesters flooded the inside and outside the US Capitol calling for the US to facilitate a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hundreds were arrested, according to activists. The action was planned by Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, two Jewish-led organizations fighting for Palestinian liberation. Activists wore shirts that read “Ceasefire now,” and held signs that read: “Jews say stop genocide of Palestinians.” On Tuesday, giggling children shouted, clapped and sang beside swings and a slide in the courtyard of al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, captured on video as medical staff tried to distract them from airstrikes pounding their city. The next morning, just a few metres away, a grim faced man climbed on to a shattered roof to retrieve the lacerated remains of a tiny infant, one of the youngest victims of a devastating blast that turned a place of healing into a slaughterhouse. The explosion ripped through a courtyard and car park filled with refugees early on Tuesday evening. The crowd had come to the church-run hospital seeking refuge, and spent the afternoon singing peace songs to keep up their spirits, said Hosam Naoum, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, who overseas al-Ahli. They knew it was a place of only relative safety. Israeli forces had ordered the directors of al-Ahli to evacuate the hospital three times over the previous four days, reaching them by phone on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Two missiles also hit a hospital building on Saturday, Naoum said. Administrators shared news of these warnings, and thousands left, but as bombing intensified in surrounding neighbourhoods, they flooded back. “We had a moral obligation … We told them it is important you know what is taking place, but they have nowhere to go,” Naoum said. “At that point in time [of the blast], we know there were thousands of people there.” “There was some bombing and airstrikes around the hospital and they fled in.” That flow of people in and out of the compound, as they tried to make impossible decisions about where might be safe in a city under relentless attack, had been “happening all the time, back and forth” he added. The Guardian’s Sammy Gecsoyler has sent this dispatch from Wednesday night’s pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Downing Street: Thousands commemorated the more than 3,500 Palestinians killed since 7 October on Wednesday in pouring rain outside Downing Street, London. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which organized the demonstration following Tuesday’s deadly blast at the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, said more than 5,000 people were in attendance. A number of speeches were followed by a candlelit vigil for those killed in the explosion. Nihal Faris, 36, an entrepreneur, said: “I cannot fathom what is happening right now, it’s devastating. I have a lot of friends who are there. I cannot imagine what that the children are going through, what the parents are going through.” Anger toward the media’s coverage of the conflict was a common sentiment expressed by speakers and attendees. On Tuesday, the BBC issued an on-air apology for characterizing pro-Palestinian demonstrations held in the UK as expressing support for Hamas. Glyn Secker, 79, secretary for Jewish Voice for Labour, said the group was there to “express [its] solidarity with the Palestinian people and to mourn the deaths, including of course the Jewish Israeli deaths as well as the multitude of Palestinian deaths”. Secker said in the days following the Hamas attack, the British government gave “verbal, active encouragement for Israel to cut water, food and power supplies, and to increase its attacks on Gaza”. Usama Al Asyeh, 20, a Palestinian-Jordanian student said: “The Palestinian people have struggled for 75 years. Only now people around the world are starting to realise the horrible conditions that these people have been suffering with.”