UN food aid collapses as Israeli strikes pound Rafah
RAFAH
The U.N. Agency helping Palestinian refugees reported that its distribution center and the U.N. World Food Program’s warehouses in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah “are now inaccessible due to ongoing military operations,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
When asked if he was referring to Israeli military operations, Dujarric said he spoke to a colleague at the U.N. agency known as UNRWA just before Tuesday’s U.N. briefing in New York and “They’re not sticking around to see who’s doing the firing.”
“It’s an active combat zone. Bullets are flying, so not to sound glib, so they have no access to those areas. But it is clear ... that the parties who are in conflict are fighting,” Dujarric said.
Asked about the ramifications of suspending aid, he said simply: “People don’t eat.”
Edem Wosornu, the U.N. humanitarian office’s operations director, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday that the Rafah crossing has remained closed and inaccessible for humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries since May 17.
“Around 82,000 metric tons of supplies are stranded on the Egypt side of the crossing. Food there is spoiling, and medicines are expiring,” she said.
The humanitarian crisis has escalated over the past two weeks since Israel launched an incursion into Rafah that closed the vital border crossing, vowing to root out Hamas fighters. The fighting sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing out of Rafah, many of whom were displaced earlier in the war.
A U.S. official said Tuesday that Israel has addressed many of President Joe Biden's concerns about a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, although the Americans stopped short of greenlighting a total Israeli assault on the city.
Israel and the United States are also seeking to contain fallout after chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court requested arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas. Among the prosecutor's allegations against Israel was using “starvation as a method of warfare.” Israeli and U.S. leaders harshly condemned the accusations.
The Gaza Strip has been gripped by more than seven months of war since Hamas's unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
Hospitals evacuated
The Palestinian Health Ministry says one of the main hospitals still operating in northern Gaza has been evacuated after coming under fire from Israeli forces, while a second has been surrounded by troops.
The two hospitals, Kamal Adwan and Awda, are located in or near Jabalia refugee camp, where Israeli troops have been waging an intensified assault for days against Hamas fighters who the military says had regrouped there.
The ministry said Tuesday that Kamal Adwan hospital was “targeted” by Israeli troops, forcing around 150 staff and dozens of patients to evacuate the facility, including intensive care patients and infants in incubators. The ministry did not elaborate but said they fled “under fire from shelling.”
The Israeli military did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Awda hospital issued a statement Tuesday saying it had been surrounded by Israeli troops for the past three days and that an artillery shell had hit its fifth floor. On Monday, the international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said Awda had run out of drinking water and was encircled by Israel tanks.
Awda and Kamal Adwan Hospitals were besieged by Israeli troops for days in December, causing heavy damage to both and forcing them to shut down. They resumed partial operations since then. Israel has claimed in general that Hamas uses hospitals as bases or to keep weapons, an accusation hospital staff deny.
Israel’s 7-month-old offensive in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, has devastated the territory’s health sector. Around two-thirds of Gaza’s original 36 hospitals have been forced to shut down, and the rest only partially function.
Israel troops kill 8 in West Bank raid
Palestinian health officials said eight Palestinians were killed Tuesday in an Israeli raid on the West Bank city of Jenin, where the correspondents reported masked gunmen exchanged fire with Israeli forces.
Smoke billowed over the refugee camp adjacent to the city after a series of explosions inside, while at least five gunmen clashed with troops in a nearby downtown neighbourhood, the correspondent reported.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli troops had killed eight people — raising an earlier toll of seven — and wounded nearly 20 others during the raid, which began in the morning in Jenin city.
An AFP journalist saw four bodies at Jenin's Khalil Suleiman government hospital morgue.
The Israeli military said it had launched a "counterterrorism operation" in Jenin, adding later that "exchanges of fire are underway between the security forces and the armed terrorists".