As a permanent member of the UN Security Council the UK can call for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages.

I read they used motorised paragliders to cross over the border fence. The vans may have been captured afterwards. But this is my guess and I have no idea if there were forces that managed to overpower israeli forces controlling checkpoints.

miniflux is great. If you don't want to self host, the developer offers a hosted version that is very reasonably priced and I like to think it contributes to the development of the software.