Kerem Shalom crossing: Israeli demonstrators block Gaza relief vehicles

Many Israeli protesters are stopping aid trucks from going into Gaza for three days.

Protesters, including the families of people still held captive in Gaza, held Israeli flags at a key crossing and shouted against “helping the enemy”.

The people protesting want to stop sending any help to Gaza until all the hostages are freed.

Despite the US asking for aid to be allowed into Gaza without being stopped, it is still not happening.

For the third day in a row, the demonstrators went to the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza to try to stop aid from getting into Gaza. A line of trucks with aid supplies, some with Egyptian flags, waited for a long time at the crossing. The protesters wanted the government to stop sending aid until Hamas releases the rest of the captives.

The UN office that helps with emergencies (OCHA) said that on Wednesday, the first day of the protests, only nine trucks could go through at Kerem Shalom. They sent 114 trucks to the Rafah crossing in Egypt instead.

The UN said that only 153 trucks went into Gaza on Wednesday, which was much less than usual.

The government of Israel is being asked by many countries to let more help into Gaza. They are also feeling pressure from people in their own country to bring the hostages back home.

The protestors think it’s wrong to send aid to Gaza while their loved ones are still being kept by Hamas. They believe it’s not morally right.

They are worried that the help might go to the group.

Israeli news says that some of the people protesting have family members who are being held hostage, some are parents of soldiers in Gaza, and others are right-wing activists who want Jewish settlements to be brought back to Gaza.

There was a protest and some people said that officials from Israel and America will have important talks about hostages in Europe soon. They will talk with mediators from Qatar and Egypt.

The CIA director, William Burns, and the Mossad chief, David Barnea, are going to meet with Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, to talk about getting more than 100 Israeli hostages released and stopping the fighting in Gaza for a while.

The White House said the discussions were serious and involved important people who helped make a deal in November.

However, Hamas still wants a complete stop to fighting and for Israeli soldiers to leave Gaza.

A leader from Palestine said to the BBC that people who are helping to make peace have suggested letting Israeli hostages go little by little in exchange for a truce that can be continued, letting Palestinian prisoners go, and giving more help.

There is still a lot of fighting in Gaza. Israeli planes bombed many Hamas targets around Khan Younis during the night.

The health ministry run by Hamas says that Israeli attacks in the last day have killed 183 people and hurt almost 400 others.

Israel started a military attack to destroy Hamas because Hamas killed 1,300 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 others as hostages in an attack on southern Israel on 7 October last year.

Since then, more than 26,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza according to health officials.