“SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT”
The Oct 7 Hamas attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
The militants also took about 250 hostages, dozens of whom were released during a week-long truce in November. Israel believes about 130 captives remain in Gaza but that 32 of them are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive have reduced much of Gaza’s urban infrastructure to rubble.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said in a statement at least one staff member was killed and 22 wounded “when Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in the eastern part of Rafah”.
The agency’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said the attack “comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine”.
Israel said later a Hamas militant was killed in a strike on Rafah and identified him as Muhammad Abu Hasna, one of four people the health ministry in Gaza said were killed in the strike on the UNRWA facility.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the United Nations secretary-general, told reporters that “the Israeli army received the coordinates … of this facility”.
The Gaza health ministry said 79 people were killed in Gaza between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. Among those were seven killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a group of people at Kuwait Junction, an aid distribution point just south of Gaza City.
“POWERLESSNESS”
Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, has so far been spared a ground invasion but the prospect of an Israeli operation there has sparked global alarm because it is crowded with almost 1.5 million Palestinians, most of them displaced.
Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to send ground troops into the city, a warning reiterated by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.
The dire food shortages in Gaza have killed 27 people through malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
President Joe Biden has ordered the US military to build a temporary pier off Gaza to unload aid, while five Arab and European countries have also parachuted food into Gaza.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, said air drops and sea shipments of aid “are a sign of powerlessness and weakness on the part of the international community”.
Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators failed to bring about a deal for a new truce and hostage release before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan this week.
Fahd al-Ghoul, a resident of Jabalia Camp in the north, said: “We have been fasting against our will for two months or more.”
“Now with Ramadan, nothing changes in our reality,” he said.
Source: CNA
