Israel’s military and the United Nations say a few UN trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip, the first such delivery in nearly three months.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher on Monday said Israeli authorities had cleared nine aid trucks to enter Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem crossing (known as Kerem Shalom in Israel), calling it “a drop in the ocean” when so many more supplies are needed to address a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
The figure is far short of the more than 500 trucks that entered Gaza daily before the start of the war in October 2023. Food security experts last week warned of famine amid accusations that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.
“Significantly more aid must be allowed into Gaza starting tomorrow morning,” Fletcher said in a statement.
The UN secretary-general’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, confirmed the limited aid will be distributed through the world body’s mechanisms but also reiterated the amount of aid crossing into Gaza “is not enough”.
The Israeli decision on Sunday to allow “minimal” aid into Gaza came as it launched an intensified ground offensive during an ongoing heavy bombardment that has killed hundreds of people over the past week.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address pressure from international “allies” was behind the move.
Israel’s “greatest friends in the world”, he declared without mentioning specific countries, had said there is “‘one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you’.
“Therefore, to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” Netanyahu said, stressing the aim of the intensified offensive is for Israel’s forces to “take control of all” of Gaza.
Still, far-right members of his coalition government slammed the aid decision, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calling it a “grave mistake”.
Sanctions threat
It came as the leaders of Britain, France and Canada warned their countries would take action, including possible sanctions, if Israel does not halt its renewed military offensive in Gaza and lift aid restrictions.
“The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law,” a joint statement released by the British government said, also expressing opposition to any attempt to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions,” it added.
Separately, 22 donor countries also issued a joint statement on Monday urging Israel to “allow a full resumption of aid into Gaza immediately”.
“Whilst we acknowledge indications of a limited restart of aid,” Gaza’s population “faces starvation” and “must receive the aid they desperately need”, it said.
The statement was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
‘Two million people are starving’
Israel has been accused of weaponising hunger and using the blockade to try to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a US-based Muslim and Arab rights group, said the decision to allow a handful of aid trucks into the territory is an effort to buy goodwill as Israel continues a relentless military campaign that has killed more than 53,000 people over the past 19 months.
“This is a completely insufficient, psychotic PR stunt by Netanyahu’s genocidal government, which is determined to occupy and flatten Gaza, and then expel any Palestinians who survive,” it said in a statement.
Speaking at the opening of the annual World Health Assembly on Monday, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Israel’s block on aid has driven up the risk of famine.
“Two million people are starving,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned, noting that 160,000 tonnes of food are “blocked at the border just minutes away”.
He said the WHO and other UN agencies stood ready to deliver aid into Gaza – if and when entrance is allowed. “People are dying from preventable diseases as medicines wait at the border, while attacks on hospitals deny people care and deter them from seeking it,” Tedros added.
On Sunday, the Health Ministry in Gaza said the Indonesian Hospital, one of the largest partially functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, had ceased work because of Israeli attacks.
As Israel intensifies its offensive across Gaza, sources told the Reuters news agency there has been no progress in a new round of indirect talks in Qatar’s capital, Doha between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Palestinian group that headed an attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 that killed an estimated 1,139 people, with more than 200 also taken captive.
