HUMANITARIAN AID
With the Gaza war now in its sixth month, The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the population – are on the brink of famine and global pressure has been growing on Israel to allow more access to the enclave.
On Tuesday, the United Nations used a new land route to deliver food to northern Gaza for the first time in three weeks.
“We have been taking efforts to facilitate more aid into northern Gaza,” Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heinrich told journalists on Wednesday. “This was a pilot to prevent Hamas from taking over the aid as they often do.”
The US, Jordan and others have conducted airdrops of aid in Gaza and on Tuesday a ship carrying 200 tonnes of aid left Cyprus in a pilot project to open a sea corridor to deliver supplies. While UN officials have welcomed new aid routes, they stress there is no substitute for land access.
The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel then launched an air, sea and ground assault that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say.
Since the Gaza war began, violence has also risen in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with stepped up Israeli military raids and Palestinian street attacks.
On Wednesday, Israeli officials said a 15-year-old Palestinian stabbed a soldier and a guard at a checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem before being shot dead.
In separate incidents, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians during a raid in Jenin, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said, while a 13-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces on the outskirts of Jerusalem, in what Israeli police described as a violent riot.
Source: CNA
