The Times of Israel is liveblogging Saturday’s events as they unfold.
81 trucks of aid entered Gaza Friday; UN calls volume ‘woefully inadequate’
Eighty-one trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza through Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Egypt’s Rafah crossings today, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.
Kerem Shalom had been closed for three days until today due to what OCHA says were security incidents, including an IDF drone strike, the seizure of aid by desperate locals and unannounced and uncoordinated prisoner and casualty transfers from Israel.
“The volume of aid remains woefully inadequate,” OCHA says in a statement. “The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator ‘that this is an impossible situation for the people of Gaza and for those trying to help them. The fighting must stop.'”
Israel maintains that it is inspecting hundreds of trucks every day and that the reason for the bottleneck is the failure of UN facilitators to keep up with the pace. The UN has argued that mass aid delivery is impossible amid the IDF’s aerial and ground operations in Gaza.
Israel reopened its Kerem Shalom Crossing on December 17 for aid to enter Gaza directly from Israel for the first time since the war’s outbreak.
However, the move hasn’t led to the desired increase in aid delivery.
Two hundred trucks entered Gaza each day of last month’s week-long truce. The daily figure has not come close to that number since. Before the war and the massive humanitarian crisis that it has sparked, roughly 500 trucks of aid were entering Gaza each day.
US citizen inspired by October 7 charged with trying to join Somalia’s al Shabaab
NEW YORK (JTA) — A US citizen living in Egypt sought to join the al-Shabaab terrorist organization and wage violent jihad against America and its allies in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, federal prosecutors say.
Karrem Nasr, 23, of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was arrested December 14 after flying from Egypt to Nairobi, Kenya, where prosecutors say he was planning to meet with al-Shabaab members before traveling to train in Somalia, where the terror group is based.
Nasr was returned to the US yesterday and is scheduled to appear today before a federal magistrate in Manhattan. He is charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Court records don’t list a lawyer who could speak on Nasr’s behalf.
Nasr, also known as Ghareeb Al-Muhajir, expressed his desire to join al-Shabaab in online postings and communications with a paid FBI informant who was posing as a facilitator for terrorist organizations, according to a criminal complaint unsealed today.
Nasr told the informant “the No. 1 enemy is America,” which he described as the “head of the snake,” the complaint says. He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that jihad was “coming soon to a US location near you,” the complaint says. The post, under the name “Egyptian Muslim,” included airplane, bomb, and fire emojis.
Nasr, who moved to Egypt in July, started communicating with the FBI informant in November via an encrypted messaging app, according to the criminal complaint. He told the informant that he had been thinking of waging jihad “for a long time” but that he was “not capable of doing it” before Hamas attacked Israel, the complaint says.
“After the October 7th events, I felt that something has changed,” Nasr told the informant, according to the complaint. “To the better, I mean. I felt that pride and dignity came back to the Muslims.”
IDF strikes in Syria after rockets fired at Golan; also hits Hezbollah sites in Lebanon
After warning sirens were heard in several towns in the northern Golan Heights, the Israel Defense Forces confirms they were triggered by rockets launched from the Golan Heights.
The IDF says both projectiles landed in open areas and that Israeli forces are shelling the source of the fire.
The army also says it struck “terror infrastructure” belonging to Hezbollah and a launch site used by the Lebanese group, following a number of cross-border attacks earlier today.
כוחות צה"ל תקפו תשתית טרור של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בלבנון.
בנוסף, כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקף מוקדם יותר היום, עמדת שיגור שהייתה בשימוש חיזבאללה בשטח לבנון.כמו כן, בהמשך להתרעות בצפון הארץ לפני זמן קצר, זוהו שני שיגורים שחצו משטח סוריה ונפלו בשטח פתוח >> pic.twitter.com/ZOOIRYC0ZO
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 29, 2023