The first humanitarian aid convoy to be sent to Gaza has arrived through the Rafah border on Saturday after wrangling over conditions for delivering relief left it stranded in Egypt.

The United Nations said the 20-truck convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received by the Palestinian Red Crescent, but the aid was a fraction of the quantity needed and it was unclear how much aid will be allowed to pass in coming days.

Rafah is the main route in and out of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel, and the focus of efforts to deliver relief to Gaza's 2.3 million residents. UN officials say at least 100 trucks a day are required in Gaza to cover urgent needs, and that any delivery of aid should be sustained and at scale. Before the outbreak of conflict, an average of about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily.

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza – already precarious – has reached catastrophic levels," UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement. "I am confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine and fuel."

Israel imposed a total blockade and launched air strikes on Gaza in response to a deadly attack on Israeli soil by Hamas on October 7. The Rafah crossing has been out of operation since shortly afterwards, and bombardments on the Gaza side damaged roads and buildings that needed repairs.

Hamas sends hostage message to Israel

Palestinian militant faction Hamas said on Saturday it won't discuss the fate of Israeli army captives until Israel ends its "aggression" on the Gaza strip.

"Our stance with regards to Israeli army captives is clear: it's related to a (possible) exchange of prisoners, and we will not discuss it until Israel ends its aggression on Gaza and Palestinians," Hamas official Osama Hamdan, speaking from Lebanon, told a televised press conference.

It comes just a day after Hamas released two U.S. hostages, a mother and a daughter, on Friday. Judith Tai Raanan, 59, and her daughter Natalie, 17, who were taken from Nahal Oz kibbutz, were reunited with family inside Israel on Friday.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said the hostages were released in response to Qatari mediation efforts, "for humanitarian reasons, and to prove to the American people and the world that the claims made by Biden and his fascist administration are false and baseless."

They were the first hostages confirmed by both sides in the conflict to be freed since Hamas gunmen burst into Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and taking around 200 hostages.

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Aid trucks cross Gaza border

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Gaza healthcare on verge of 'complete collapse'

Hezbollah says fighter killed along Israel border

A fighter from the Lebanese group Hezbollah was killed along the border with Israel on Saturday, the group said, taking to 14 the number of its members it says have died since the conflict began.

A security source in Lebanon told Reuters the fighter was killed in the Lebanese area of Hula, which lies opposite Margaliot on the Israeli side which Israel said was the target of an anti-tank missile attack. The Israeli army said it fired back.

Hezbollah and Israel's military have been trading fire at the frontier on an almost daily basis since Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel retaliated with airstrikes on Gaza.

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