Day: October 22, 2023

Then Sidney Powell fell back down to earth.

Trump’s team spurned her. Federal prosecutors demanded her fundraising records. She was ordered to pay sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit in Michigan. The State Bar of Texas lodged a disciplinary complaint against her. Two companies that make voting software sued her.

All that was before prosecutors began filing criminal charges. In August, she appeared as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal indictment accusing Trump of trying to subvert the election, and, later that month, she was charged alongside him in a Georgia case brought by Atlanta-area prosecutors.

On Thursday, Powell resolved the Georgia case by pleading guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to interfere with the performance of election duties. Her plea related to her involvement with a secretive effort to access and copy election software in rural Coffee County, Ga. in the months after the 2020 election — part of an attempt to prove Democrats might have tampered with the machines.

The deal turns Powell into the government’s most prominent known asset in its quest to convict Trump, potentially now dangerous to the president she once supported. But it also represents a personal minefield for the 68-year-old lawyer, who is still fundraising based on a promise to sponsor causes that are dear to supporters of the former president, including the legal defense of people accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The plea deal sent shock waves through circles loyal to those causes.

“I’m surprised,” said Jonathon Moseley, an attorney who has represented numerous Jan. 6 defendants. “She built a reputation on being a fighter. She wrote a book called ‘Licensed to Lie’ about government corruption. I just wouldn’t have expected her to stop fighting.”

Powell’s attorney, Brian Rafferty, declined to comment.

As part of her plea, she was required to write a letter of apology to the people of Georgia — a terse handwritten note on a legal pad that she submitted to prosecutors Thursday that indicated she was sorry for her actions in Coffee County, according to a person familiar with the message who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

For now, the terms of Powell’s plea agreement prohibit her from discussing the case publicly or speaking to others charged.

That leaves associates to debate whether she is now a Trump antagonist or remains a loyal foot soldier.

After Trump declined to act on some of the most brazen proposals, including naming Powell special counsel and seizing voting machines, she soured on him, according to someone who discussed the matter with her and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal cases. “She was disgusted with his unwillingness to take action,” said this person, who recalled finding it unusual that she was expressing personal disappointment with someone whose election defeat she continued to try to reverse.

But an attorney who once worked for Powell’s firm, Sidney Powell P.C., rejected the notion that her personal feelings toward Trump would influence her testimony.

“The idea that she would shade her testimony based upon a personal bias could only be suggested by someone who does not know Sidney well. (Of course, I don’t think Trump committed any crime, and so I don’t think there is anything to hide.),” the attorney, Molly McCann Sanders, wrote in an email.

Of her onetime boss, the attorney added, “I know her first priority will be to be truthful.”

Powell toiled for decades in high-stakes, but low-profile, circumstances — as a federal prosecutor in Texas and Virginia and then a private litigator representing defendants in the Enron financial scandal and other disputes.

She gained prominence in 2019 when she took over the defense of Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. She went to great lengths for her client, writing to then-Attorney General William P. Barr about the matter, and, by her own account, personally briefing Trump on the case. The Justice Department announced plans to drop the case in 2020, and Trump ultimately pardoned Flynn.

“I wish I knew,” Powell said in a 2021 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, when asked how she became involved in Trump’s post-election legal efforts in 2020.

She said she was “in the area at the time” and working “on another matter” with Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. “The next thing I know I’m smack in the middle of it,” she said. “And people are pouring in with offers of help and wanting to investigate and wanting to give us affidavits.”

One of those people was apparently a Minnesota artist with no apparent expertise in election administration, who wrote to Powell four days after the election, acknowledging that her claims were “pretty wackadoodle” and yet alleging widespread malfeasance by Dominion Voting Systems — malfeasance implicating the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.

Powell aired some of those ideas the next day on Fox News. The Nov. 8, 2020, broadcast was the first in a string of Fox appearances by Powell over the next month — appearances in which she introduced millions of Fox viewers, including the then-president, to fantastical claims of election fraud and burnished her pro-Trump bona fides.

On Nov. 13, she teased that she would soon publish voluminous evidence of fraud. “I’m going to release the Kraken,” she said, a reference to a mythical sea monster that soon morphed into a viral pro-Trump rallying cry.

Less than a week later, she shared the stage with Giuliani at a news conference held at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee. The president primed his supporters for the occasion on Twitter, now known as X: “Important News Conference today by lawyers on a very clear and viable path to victory. Pieces are very nicely falling into place. RNC at 12 p.m.”

Powell, who was presented by Giuliani as a member of Trump’s legal team, alleged a vast conspiracy by foreign forces to switch the outcome of the election.

“What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China and the interference with our elections here in the United States,” she said at the Nov. 19, 2020, news conference.

Three days later, the Trump campaign sought to distance itself from her. Giuliani, in a statement issued by the campaign, said Powell was “practicing law on her own.” As one campaign official put it at the time, “She was too crazy even for the president.” Powell pressed ahead with her claims, filing a series of ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits — which came to be known as the “Kraken” cases — seeking to reverse the outcome of the election in numerous states.

And a month later, Powell gained access to the White House and an audience with Trump. Late on a Friday night a week before Christmas, Powell and a handful of others, including Flynn, urged the president to take extreme measures to unearth evidence of fraud and reverse his defeat, according to the testimony of people present. As the Dec. 18, 2020, meeting unfolded, first in the Oval Office and then in the White House residence, an aide described it in a text message as “UNHINGED.”

During the hours-long discussion, people present later said, Trump weighed seizing voting machines from key counties, deploying the National Guard to potentially rerun the election and appointing Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election. “There was a proposal made by Sidney to become special counsel,” Bernard Kerik, a former New York Police Department Commission and close ally of Giuliani, said in a deposition taken by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Powell, in a deposition with the same panel, said the president “asked me to be special counsel to address the election issues and to collect evidence.”

But the plan sputtered, she said. The next morning, she placed a call to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, to say, “Hey, I’d like my key and my White House pass,” as she recalled. “And his response was: Well, that’s just not going to happen.”

The reckoning for Powell began before the year was out. In December 2020, a former Dominion employee sued her for defamation in Colorado. He argued that she, Trump and others ruined his reputation by linking him to false claims the election was stolen. The case is still pending.

The next month, Dominion itself sued her for defamation, asking for $1.3 billion in damages. No evidence has ever emerged that its machines were used to swing the election.

Another company that makes voting software, Smartmatic, followed suit in April 2021. (A New York judge later dismissed the claims against her, but the company has a separate federal case against her, which is still pending.)

Responding to Dominion’s claims that spring, Powell’s attorneys contended that her statements could not be proved true or false. “No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” they wrote. Their argument was that she was merely asserting her opinions and legal theories, not that her claims were necessarily wrong.

Still, Trump erupted at the defense, and she quickly fell out of favor with him, said people familiar with the matter, who said she has not been a presence in his inner circle for several years.

Initially, he expressed appreciation that Powell was “fighting” for him while others were giving up. But her theories were scorned by other lawyers, and Trump ultimately conceded that Powell was too conspiratorial even for him. In recent months, Trump has told others that Powell was not his lawyer, while maintaining that he “liked her” at the time, according to an adviser. Trump’s lawyers believe they can undermine her as a credible witness because she has cast doubt on the veracity of her own statements, the adviser said.

Powell’s troubles mounted later in 2021, when the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia sought communications and other records related to fundraising and accounting by a number of groups started by Powell, including Defending the Republic, a Texas-based organization claiming 501(c) 4 nonprofit status, and a PAC by the same name, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

An attorney for Powell said at the time that, “We have always known the more effective we are, the more the false attacks will intensify. Defending the Republic has and will continue to fight for #WeThePeople who make this country work.”

The nonprofit group raised $16.4 million in the year following the 2020 election, according to tax filings. According to its website, Defending the Republic’s causes include: election fraud, fighting “lawfare,” exposing government corruption, fighting mandates, “defending January 6ers,” and Freedom of Information Act litigation.

The group has helped cover legal expenses for numerous people prosecuted for their alleged involvement in the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol, according to defense attorneys involved in these cases.

Moseley, the attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, said the money hasn’t always come through as promised. One of his paralegals still needs to be paid, he said, and another attorney has complained to him of not receiving payments for some time.

“I think Sidney’s funding had to take care of her and some of her legal battles,” said Moseley, who was disbarred last year in Virginia for violating a range of professional rules.

At the end of 2021, a federal judge in Michigan ordered Powell and others involved in the November 2020 lawsuit that challenged the election results in that state to pay about $175,000 in legal fees to the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit. The judge, Linda V. Parker, called the fees an “appropriate sanction … needed to deter Plaintiffs’ counsel and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future.”

Kleinhendler, Powell’s attorney, criticized the decision and vowed to appeal, but a federal appeals court panel upheld the sanctions against her.

Last year, a disciplinary commission within the Texas bar sued Powell for professional misconduct. A state judge tossed the complaint, prompting the commission to appeal.

Jury selection in Powell’s trial in Fulton County had been set to begin this week. Conviction on seven felony counts — including violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering act and conspiracy to commit election fraud — could have been rock bottom for the embattled lawyer.

Her deal to plead guilty only to misdemeanors means she will avoid jail time. In addition to six years of probation, she agreed to pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia.

The deal may also help preserve Powell’s ability to practice law because it involved prosecutors spelling out that her crimes did not involve “moral turpitude,” language she could use to fend off the complaint in Texas. And because Powell has no prior felonies, successful completion of the terms of her sentence will allow her under Georgia law to erase the convictions from her permanent record.

The deal means “better consequences for her,” Moseley said, but it puts her standing in the pro-Trump movement in doubt. “It’s going to be hard to rally the troops after this,” he said.

Instead of furnishing evidence of election interference by the Chinese or Venezuelans, she is admitting to having engaged in it herself. “Guilty,” she intoned in a downtown Atlanta courtroom, when asked by a prosecutor how she pleaded to the charges.

Powell was the second of the former president’s 18 co-defendants to plead guilty and agree to testify. Bail bondsman Scott Hall pleaded guilty in September.

Another defendant, Kenneth Chesebro, pleaded guilty on Friday to a single felony count of conspiring to file false documents — a charge related to his role in organizing GOP slates of electors in seven states won by Joe Biden to cast votes for Trump anyway.

Powell has now agreed to testify against the remaining defendants in the case, including Trump. It’s not known what precisely prosecutors hope to learn from Powell and when they might call her as a witness.

Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Daysha Young read aloud in court the facts prosecutors would have presented against Powell at trial, describing how Powell entered into a conspiracy with several co-defendants in the case. The purpose of the conspiracy, Young said, was to unlawfully access election machines in Coffee County. At the center of the conspiracy, Young argued, was Powell’s move to retain Sullivan Strickler, an Atlanta-based cyber-forensics firm.

Her testimony could reveal whether others in Trump’s orbit were involved with or aware of the scheme. There are some clues about ways Powell may be able to link members of Trump’s inner circle to the far-fetched effort. In a December 2020 email — which was read aloud during a deposition taken by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack — Powell seems to have kept Meadows — another defendant in the Georgia case — apprised of efforts to access voting software in various states.

“Georgia machine access promised in meeting Friday night,” part of the email read. A lawyer for Meadows did not respond to a request for comment.

Powell is now limited in what she can say publicly about the Georgia case. But her nonprofit, Defending the Republic, asked followers for forbearance in a Friday newsletter distributed via the Substack platform: “We at Defending the Republic appreciate your patience, support, and understanding of Sidney’s decision regarding the Georgia case.”

“Now that this is behind us, we can focus on our mission,” the newsletter vowed.

Emma Brown contributed to this report.

“This is a secret military document,” the first page begins. “It should be kept in a safe place. It is forbidden to move with it except when there are orders.”

On its back cover is a picture of the Palestinian sheikh Abdullah Azzam, a mentor of Osama bin Laden. “If this is their source of inspiration, and this is the figure, the symbol, they are looking at, I understand something more about their behavior on Oct. 7,” said Michael Milshtein, a former head of the Palestinian department in Israeli military intelligence, referring to the date of the attack that left 1,400 Israelis dead. Milshtein examined the field manual at the request of The Post.

Experts, including Milshtein, said the manual appeared to be genuine and matches a cache of other documents gathered by Israeli forces and first responders following the attack. The Israeli prime minister’s office has verified 17 pages of documents for The Post. Some documents, including the field manual, were not provided for verification because of identifying marks that could identify who first found them and gave them to The Post.

Others Hamas documents have included maps and detailed plans for attacks on several individual kibbutzim around Gaza, including the intention to kill and kidnap civilians.

The document obtained by The Post provided guidance on operating weapons that they are known to have carried and also offered detailed descriptions on the vulnerabilities of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles. Included, for instance, are instructions for using North Korean F-7 rocket-propelled grenades, which Pyongyang has denied supplying to Hamas. Around 50 of the high-explosive munitions were found by Israeli troops following the attacks, according to the military, which has displayed some of the materiel it found.

Hamas officials in Gaza and Beirut did not respond to requests for comment.

Hamas’s secretive military wing al-Qassam is estimated to have a built a force of anywhere between 15,000 and 40,000 combat-ready fighters — 1,200 of whom it has said were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

In earlier years when tunnels were open to Egypt, Hamas could easily smuggle in explosives and rockets to Gaza, said Mkhaimar Abusada, an analyst at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University. But Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi has clamped down on smuggling routes.

“Honestly I don’t know how they have kept up their ability to build this military capability,” Abusada said, noting the security perimeter around Gaza. Members of al-Qassam’s elite Nukhba special forces that spearheaded the assault are known to have been trained in Iran and have returned to Gaza to train others, he said.

Militants used paragliders, motorbikes and trucks to cross the border fence from Gaza into Israel, and small specialized units attacked Israeli communities, in line with the instructions in the handbook.

“We saw they are working as professional troops,” said Maj. G, a commander of the Israeli Institute for Weapons Research on Friday, as he displayed weapons that had been seized from Hamas. The major could only be identified by his rank and first name under rules set by the Israeli briefers. “They worked very specifically. It was very organized. One vehicle is IED, one vehicle was RPGs, one vehicle was a command team.”

The instructions for “shock troops” also included the best places to stab someone, according to the field manual obtained by The Post. The “neck in the collarbone area,” “spine” and “underarms” are listed.

Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert with the Middle East Forum who has extensively studied documents recovered from battlefields in Iraq and Syria agreed that it appeared genuine. “It wouldn’t be surprising for documents like this to be in the possession of fighters,” he said.

The Israeli military says hundreds of documents and other material have been collected by the Intelligence Directorate and the Yahalom combat engineering unit, including Hamas cellphones, communication equipment, cameras and intelligence reports.

Many documents have emerged in a Telegram channel called South First Responders, which compiles evidence gathered in the aftermath of the attacks by those clearing the areas. The group declines to answer questions on its methods for gathering documents and material — citing risks to sources.

Those who have worked to remove the bodies of hundreds of Palestinian militants killed in the assault say that corpses are first checked over by bomb squads to make sure there are no hidden explosives.

“They came with everything, fully equipped, with documents, maps and instructions,” said Yossi Landau, a front-line responder with the Zaka medical organization, which has been working to remove bodies.

One 14-page document partially posted by South First Responders and verified by Israeli authorities outlined attack plans for Mefalsim, a small kibbutz of 1,000 people that managed to escape relatively unscathed from the attack. Kibbutz security fought off a group of around 30 militants armed with grenades and AK-47s at the front gate.

The document details the size of the Kibbutz security team, the number of minutes it would take to travel between various points in the community and the goal to “take soldiers and civilians as prisoners and hostages and negotiate their release.”

According to four additional pages obtained by The Post, the team at the front gate was supposed to distract the Kibbutz security force while a Hamas explosives unit blew a hole in the back gate.

“The group keeps the Kibbutz busy until the rest of the forces arrive,” the planning document said. But the reinforcements never arrived, according to those that fought in the Kibbutz.

“They knew where the gates were, they knew where the generators were to cut the electricity,” said Yarden Reskin, a landscape architect and volunteer on the security team at the kibbutz. Looking at the attack plans, and the death toll in surrounding communities: “We do feel like we had a lot of luck,” he said. “We did our part, we did it good, but we had a lot of luck.”

Hendrix reported from Jerusalem. Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed reporting.

A Detroit synagogue president was found stabbed to death outside her home in the downtown area of the city on Saturday morning. 

Samantha Woll, 40, was head of the Isaac Agree Downtown Detroit Synagogue since 2022, and was known for her work with several Democratic politicians including Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. 

Woll’s body was reportedly discovered after a ‘trail of blood’ led to her home, where she was found with multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Police say they are still investigating the crime, and have not released a motive for the crime. It remains unclear if the killing has any relation to unrest in the Middle East. 

The Detroit Police Department told DailyMail.com that no arrests have been made and no press conference has been scheduled. Anyone with information is asked to call Detroit Police Department’s Homicide Section at (313) 596-2260. 

Tributes quickly poured in for the religious leader, who was noted for her work building bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities, as her synagogue expressed shock at her sudden ‘unexpected’ passing. 

‘At this point we do not have more information, but will share more when it becomes available,’ her synagogue said. 

‘May her memory be a blessing.’ 

Woll was named in the Detroit Jewish News‘ ’36 under 36’ list in 2017, which described her as a ‘social justice and political activist’. 

‘She was instrumental in the founding of the Muslim-Jewish Forum of Detroit — a grassroots collective of young adults of both faiths who gather in partnership to learn, celebrate and build community together,’ the glowing profile read. 

She was praised for helping ‘to build and deepen important relationships’ between local Jewish and Muslim communities, where she hosted ‘revolutionary events, including an Interfaith Iftar dinner welcoming Syrian refugees.’ 

‘By extending her hand and creating space for connection between Muslims and Jews, she has exemplified the values of healing the world.’ 

Michigan has one of the largest Muslim populations per capita in the United States, according to the World Population Review. 

Investigators have not indicated any link to the conflict in the Middle East, however it comes just days after US Attorney General Merrick Garland warned that Muslim and Jewish people are at an increased risk of threats and hate crimes due to the situation.

The fatal stabbing has also come just a week after Palestinian-American boy Wadea Al-Fayoume, 6, was stabbed to death in Illinois. 

In a statement after the Jewish leaders’ death, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who Woll had also worked for on her re-election campaign, said she was ‘shocked, saddened and horrified’ at the ‘murder.’ 

‘Sam was as kind a person as I’ve ever known. She was driven by her sincere love of her community, state and country. Sam truly used her faith and activism to create a better place for everyone,’ Nessel said on X. 

Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin also praised Woll, saying she was one of the leaders who helped guide her office in her first full term in Washington. 

‘She did for our team as Deputy District Director what came so naturally to her: helping others & serving constituents,’ she said on X. 

‘Separately, in politics & in the Jewish community, she dedicated her short life to building understanding across faiths, bringing light in the face of darkness.’ 

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he was devastated ‘to learn of the loss of one of Detroit’s great young leaders.’ 

‘Just weeks ago, I shared a day of joy with Sam at the dedication of the newly renovated Downtown Synagogue. It was a project she successfully led with great pride and enthusiasm,’ he said in a statement. 

‘Sam’s loss has left a huge hole in the Detroit community. This entire city joins with her family and friends in mourning her tragic death.’ 

State Rep. Noah Arbit, who is Jewish, described Woll as the ‘kindest, most beautiful soul’ as he paid his respects. 

‘I am shattered and broken and unable to move. There are no words,’ he said. 

‘The kindest, most beautiful soul taken in the most evil, brutal way. Sam was committed to justice and equality. In her name we will never give up. Baruch Dayan Emet, Sam. You were so loved and cherished.’ 

A Hamas fugitive who ‘ran the group’s terrorist operations in the West Bank’ lives in a council property in a North London borough that is home to roughly a fifth of the UK’s Jewish community, a report has revealed.

Muhammad Qassem Sawalha, 62, who served on Hamas’s ruling body, managed to steer clear of Israel’s security services using a relative’s passport and left for the UK in the 1990s, before later gaining British citizenship, The Times reports.

In the UK, Sawalha continued to work for Hamas. He held secret discussions about ‘revitalising’ terrorist acts in Israel and helping to launder money to fund activities in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a 2004 US Department of Justice indictment.

In 2003, the father of four became a council tenant at a two-storey home with a garage and a garden in Colindale, in the north London borough of Barnet, where he lives with his 56-year-old wife Sawsan.

Some 56,616 Jews live in the borough of Barnet, the highest Jewish population of any in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The address is within a 10-minute drive of two synagogues.

In June 2021, Sawalha and his wife used the Right to Buy scheme to purchase their home for £320,700.

The council granted them a £112,300 discount on the property’s market value, £500 less than the maximum discount available for that financial year. They do not have a mortgage on the property.

Under the Right to Buy scheme, council tenants can get a discount on the market value of a property. The average price of a home in the area is nearly £600,000, according to Land Registry data.

The council’s leader, Barry Rawlings, said he was ‘horrified to think [Sawalha] could be living in our midst’ and noted that he had launched a review.

He said: ‘We will liaise with other stakeholders including the police and the government in reviewing the full history of this case and will take all appropriate action.

‘This has emerged at a time when communities locally are in desperate need of reassurance following the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and we have a responsibility as the council to ensure we can give that reassurance.’

In 2020, Rawlings said that the UK Lawyers for Israel campaign group had informed the council of Sawalha’s background and that, as soon as it had received this information, officials ‘reported it to the counterterrorism unit at the Met Police’.

National Terrorist Financing Investigation Unit officers determined whether the tenancy agreement may have contravened sanctions legislation.

But a spokesman said ‘the evidential test was not met’ and there was no further action taken. 

The sale of the property the following year has not been subjected to an investigation.

In 2019, Sawalha met Vladimir Putin’s deputy foreign minister at an official Hamas delegation to Moscow. He served on Hamas’s politburo from 2013 to 2017 and he was photographed with the group’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in 2010 and 2012.

In 2009, Sawalha signed a declaration that commended Allah for having ‘routed the Zionist Jews’, made a plea for weapons to be sent to Gaza, and demanded a ‘Third Jihadist Front’ be set up in Palestine, alongside Afghanistan and Iraq.

Israel’s defence ministry has officially designated Sawalha as belonging to Hamas and he will face arrest should he return.

Despite his controversial activities, Sawalha was able to gain a British passport in the early Noughties. Home Office guidance states that anyone who ‘incites, justifies or glorifies’ terrorist violence or ‘seeks to provoke others to terrorist acts’ will be denied citizenship under ordinary circumstances.

Sawalha has never faced any charges in the UK. 

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast and Cardiff on Saturday in protest as they defended the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank following the violent response to horrific Hamas terror attacks launched on Israel earlier this month.

Around 1,000 Met Police officers were on duty to monitor events in the capital after a similar event last week saw a large crowd turn out in solidarity with Palestinians trapped in the Gaza strip.

Marchers held signs reading ‘Freedom for Palestine’ and ‘Stop Bombing Gaza’. 

Participants called for an end to Israel’s blockade and airstrikes launched in the wake of a brutal incursion into southern Israel by the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza.

The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let a trickle of desperately needed aid into the besieged Palestinian territory for the first time since Israel sealed it off following Hamas’ bloody rampage two weeks ago.

Just 20 trucks were allowed in, an amount aid workers said was insufficient to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis. More than 200 trucks carrying 3,000 tonnes of aid have been waiting nearby for days.

Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, half of whom have fled their homes, are rationing food and drinking dirty water. 

Hospitals say they are running low on medical supplies and fuel for emergency generators amid a territory-wide power blackout. 

Five hospitals have stopped functioning because of fuel shortages and bombing damage, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

On Friday Hamas freed two American hostages, Judith Tai Ranaan and her daughter Natalie, who had been held in Gaza since the war began on October 7, but Israel says the terrorist group is still holding at least 210 captive. 

Israel is still launching waves of airstrikes across Gaza as Palestine fires rockets back.

Israel’s military spokesman said the country planned to step up its attacks starting on Saturday as preparation for the next stage of its war on Hamas. 

Asked about a possible ground invasion, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the military was trying to create optimal conditions beforehand.

‘We will deepen our attacks to minimise the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war. We are going to increase the attacks, from today,’ Hagari said, repeating his call for residents of Gaza City to head south for their safety.

There are growing expectations of a ground offensive that Israel says would be aimed at rooting out Hamas. 

Israel said on Friday that it does not plan to take long-term control over the small but densely populated Palestinian territory. 

An Israeli ground assault would likely lead to a dramatic escalation in casualties on both sides in urban fighting.

The war, which entered its 15th day on Saturday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. 

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that the death toll has reached 4,385, while 13,561 people have been wounded.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly in the initial attack on October 7. 

Rishi Sunak has warned that the Israel-Hamas war risks unleashing a ‘contagion of conflict’ across the Middle East.

The Prime Minister, who visited Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt for talks with key regional players this week, said the leaders agreed ‘we need to do everything possible’ to prevent the spread of the war.

He said his two-day visit to the region demonstrated ‘that the UK stands in solidarity with them against terrorism’ and that ‘there can be no justification’ for the atrocities committed by Hamas.

He said the opening of the border crossing with Egypt to allow an aid convoy into the Gaza Strip was an example of what could be achieved.