Operation Swords of Iron: Here is what happened on days 9-10

Sirens were heard in western Galilee on Sunday afternoon close to the Lebanon border in the towns of Nahariya, Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Gesher HaZiv, Betzet, and Shlomi.

Hamas in Lebanon took responsibility for the rocket fire.

A spokesperson for the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya announced they received eight people who had been wounded by the rocket fire.

The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is set to open at 9 a.m. on Monday for foreign nationals out of Gaza and humanitarian aid into the Strip, NBC News reported on Sunday night citing a Palestinian official.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Egypt that the crossing would open to humanitarian aid. "We're putting in place — with the United Nations, with Egypt, with Israel, with others — the mechanism by which to get the assistance in and to get it to the people who need it," said Blinken.

Earlier on Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that Hamas had been preventing people from leaving Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Three US sources with knowledge of the situation told NBC as well that it remains unclear if Hamas will open their side of the Rafah crossing.

Officials working to open up the Rafah crossing have also claimed that Israel will not commit to not attack trucks entering Gaza, The Washington Post reported on Sunday. One diplomatic official told the Washington Post that negotiations were taking place to allow Israel to inspect aid trucks.

Palestinians with dual citizenship gather outside Rafah border crossing with Egypt in the hope of getting permission to leave Gaza, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. October 14, 2023. (credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS)

Warnings of humanitarian crisis in Gaza as fighting continues

The reports of the crossing reopening come as local authorities and international bodies continue to warn of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza since Hamas launched the ongoing war on Israel a week ago.

Over 2,600 Palestinians have been killed amid the fighting, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry. Water and electricity supplies once facilitated by Israel have been cut off, although Israel was planning to reactivate water supplies to the southern Gaza Strip, Sullivan told American media on Sunday.

Additionally, over one million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in Gaza amid the fighting, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Sunday for Hamas to release hostages without conditions and for Israel to allow rapid and unimpeded humanitarian aid access to the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

"Each one of these two objectives are valid in themselves. They should not become bargaining chips and they must be implemented because it's the right thing to do," Guterres said in a statement.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the actions and policies of terrorist group Hamas do not represent Palestinian people, according to official news agency WAFA.

In a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Abbas also called the Palestine Liberation Organization the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," WAFA said.

More than 1,000 people are missing under the rubble of buildings that were destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, the Palestinian civil defense team said on Sunday.

In a statement, the civil defense team said many others were pulled alive out of the rubble, 24 hours after buildings were struck.

The death toll of French citizens from the Hamas attacks in Israel has risen to 19, and 13 others are still unaccounted for, French foreign minister Catherine Colonna said on Sunday during a visit to Tel Aviv.

The IDF's air war against Hamas has been impressive by every indicator.

Thousands and thousands of targets have been hit and the mix of the military's immensely powerful artificial intelligence target mining "bank" and the air force means that the defense establishment is able to continue to locate new targets as fast or faster than the old ones are bombed.

Several senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders and large portions of their headquarters, terror infrastructure, intelligence apparatuses, and symbols of their rule have been killed or obliterated.  

On Sunday evening, the Gaza Health Ministry said that 2,670 Palestinians killed, and 9,600 wounded, in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Israel's ongoing war with Hamas began last Saturday. 

Most of the survivors of the Be’eri massacre have stated in interviews that have been published and broadcast that they intend to return to the kibbutz.

One of the most close-knit kibbutzim in the country, its residents were and are like each other’s extended families. More than 120 of its residents were murdered by Hamas terrorists and many of their homes were left in ruins.

America moved an aircraft carrier into the eastern Mediterranean to send a message of deference to Tehran because it understood that it might get involved in the  Gaza war, United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning.

“We have means of communicating privately with Iran. And we have availed ourselves of those means over the past few days to make clear privately that which we have said publicly,” Sullivan said.