GAZA STRIP: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees reported that one of its relief warehouses in the war-torn Gaza was “hit” on Wednesday, injuring numerous persons, amid increasing efforts to deliver food to the besieged Palestinian territory.
“When Israeli forces struck a food distribution center in the eastern part of Rafah, at least one UNRWA staff member was killed and another 22 were injured,” the UN organization reported. According to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the organization, the attack on one of the few UNRWA distribution centers still standing in the Gaza Strip occurred at a time when food supplies are running low, hunger is pervasive, and in certain locations famine is approaching.
Four people were killed in the “bombing of the warehouse,” according to the Gaza health ministry. Over the past five months, Israeli strikes have resulted in widespread civilian casualties, turned large areas of Palestinian territory—home to 2.4 million people—into a wasteland covered in rubble, and raised fears of impending famine.
It happened as humanitarian organizations, donor countries, and nonprofits continued to work to get food into the underdeveloped area.
Two Palestinians are killed when Israeli troops opened fire at the hospital’s entrance.
A Spanish humanitarian ship, the Open Arms, had sailed from Cyprus to Gaza the day before, dragging a barge loaded with 200 tons of supplies in a first expedition intended to create a maritime passageway.
Prior to this, on Tuesday, the UN Security Council was informed by top EU ambassador Josep Borrell that the humanitarian catastrophe “is man-made.” “We need to consider other options for aid because the land borders have been manipulated,” he said, accusing the government of using “starvation as a weapon of war.”
Number of deaths, shooting at a hospital
At least 31,272 Palestinians have died in Gaza as a result of Israel’s airstrikes and ground assault, the majority of them were women and children, according to the health ministry. It stated that “dozens of missing persons are still under the rubble” and that “at least 88 people were killed over the past 24 hours.”
According to the Israeli army, its forces were “intensifying operations” in the southern Gaza Strip, which includes Khan Yunis, the largest city there.
An official stated that two Palestinian males were shot and killed by Israeli police on Wednesday at a hospital located in the occupied West Bank.
According to Wissam Bakr, the director of the hospital, the killings occurred before morning on the grounds of the government hospital in Jenin, which is located in the northern part of the West Bank. It is true that gunfire was directed towards a group of young guys close to the emergency department’s entrance, he added, adding that there were no altercations or other incidents.
The goal of weeks of negotiations involving US, Qatari, and Egyptian negotiators was to bring about a truce and prisoner swap agreement prior to the commencement of Ramadan, but the deadline was missed on Monday.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari foreign ministry, stated just the day before that while negotiations were ongoing, “we are not near a deal.”
“That entering Rafah is essential to realizing the goals of the war, and that unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state would be considered an achievement by Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Due to its dense population of nearly 1.5 million, the majority of whom are displaced, the possibility of an invasion of Rafah has alarmed people worldwide.
Assistance initiatives
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that due to severe food shortages brought on by almost five months of strikes and siege, dehydration and hunger have killed dozens of people in Gaza, the majority of whom were youngsters.
Jabalia Camp in the north is home to Fahd al-Ghoul, who stated: “We have been fasting against our will for two months or more.” Nothing in our reality changes now that Ramadan has here, the 50-year-old continued.
A field hospital will also be arriving this week, the British Foreign Office announced on Wednesday, along with the announcement that 150 tonnes of UK supplies had reached Gaza.
The United States and other European countries have declared plans to send more relief supplies by sea, despite humanitarian organizations warning that truck deliveries and airdrops will not even come close to addressing the urgent demand.
Plans to construct a pier on Gaza’s coast were announced by US President Joe Biden last week. On Tuesday, four US Army warships, carrying over 100 personnel and equipment, departed a base in Virginia. It is anticipated that the pier and offshore platform would be operational “around the 60-day point,” US Army Brigadier General Brad Hinson informed reporters.
Food packages on parachutes have been airdropped into Gaza by about six Arab and Western countries, while Morocco has flown a planeload of humanitarian supplies into Israel through Ben Gurion airport.
Using a different land route from southern Israel, the UN World Food Programme attempted to reach the most affected area of northern Gaza on Tuesday by sending six relief trucks through a gate in the security fence, according to the Israeli army.
Having “provided enough food for 25,000 people,” the World Food Program (WFP) insisted that, “with people in
With starvation looming in northern Gaza, we require daily delivery. We require points of entry that lead directly north.
