CAIRO (AP) – The United Nations on Tuesday suspended food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, citing shortages and an unsustainable security situation due to Israel’s expanding military operations. The United Nations has warned that humanitarian operations across the territory are nearing collapse.
A senior US official said Israel had addressed many of its concerns about the Biden administration’s all-out ground invasion of Rafah aimed at eradicating Hamas fighters. US President Joe Biden has previously opposed a full-scale military assault on cities filled with displaced people unless the plan prioritizes the safety of innocent Palestinians. The senior U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
The official said the administration stopped short of approving Israel’s invasion plans, but that the change in plans by Israeli officials suggested it was taking the administration’s concerns seriously.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from Rafah in chaos over the past two weeks, taking shelter in new tent camps or flooding into areas already devastated by previous Israeli attacks. About 400,000 people are believed to still remain in Rafah after some 900,000 people were hurriedly evacuated, according to COGAT, the Israeli military authority responsible for Palestinian civil affairs.
Aid to displaced people has been hampered by closed and disorderly land crossings, as well as problems plaguing the US military’s new floating pier intended to provide an alternative sea route for aid to Gaza. There is. Over the weekend, starving Palestinians received aid from a UN convoy from the pier, but the UN has since announced that the pier is no longer able to accept trucks.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters in Washington that the advance of relief supplies from the pier had been paused in recent days but resumed on Tuesday. There was no confirmation from the United Nations
The United Nations’ World Food Program said food was in short supply in central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people currently live.
“The humanitarian operation in Gaza is close to collapse,” WFP spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said. If mass flows of food and other supplies do not resume in Gaza, “famine-like conditions will spread,” she said.
The warning comes as Israel seeks to contain the international fallout from its request for arrest warrants targeting both Israeli and Hamas leaders at the world’s highest war crimes tribunal. The move attracted the support of three European countries, including France, an important ally of Israel.
“Using hunger as a means of war” is part of the charge leveled by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but they and others Israeli officials angrily deny the accusations. Prosecutors have charged three Hamas leaders with war crimes for killing civilians in an October 7 Hamas attack.
According to the United Nations, around 1.1 million people, nearly half of the Gaza Strip’s population, are facing crippling levels of hunger, putting the region on the brink of starvation. During the war, starving children in Rafah could be seen handing out pots and plastic containers in makeshift soup kitchens, leaving many families with only one meal a day.
The humanitarian crisis has worsened since the Israeli army invaded Rafah on May 6th. Tanks and troops seized the vital Rafah border to Egypt, which has been closed ever since. Since May 10, only about 30 trucks have arrived in Gaza from Israel via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the United Nations. This is because fighting has made it dangerous for aid workers to reach Gaza.
Israel insists there is no limit to the number of trucks entering Gaza. According to COGAT, 450 trucks entered the small intersection of Kerem Shalom and northern Gaza from a side road on Tuesday. The report said more than 650 trucks were waiting to be collected on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom and blamed “lack of logistical capacity and staffing” among aid agencies.
The United Nations has warned for months that Israeli attacks on Rafah could undermine efforts to deliver food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians across Gaza.
Asked about the impact of the aid cut, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric simply said: “People won’t eat.”
Etefa said WFP was continuing to distribute hot meals and reduced food packages in central Gaza through “limited distribution,” but that “stocks of food packages will run out within days.”
The US has touted the $320 million pier project as a route to speed up deliveries. The first 10 trucks rolled off the ship onto a pier on Friday and were taken to a WFP warehouse. But the Palestinian crowd that met Saturday’s second convoy removed all the food from 11 trucks, and only five truckloads arrived at the warehouse, Etefa said.
Etefa said there were no further deliveries from the pier on Sunday or Monday.
“The responsibility to ensure that aid reaches those in need does not end at crossroads or other points of entry into Gaza, but extends throughout Gaza itself,” she said.
At the same time, fighting has intensified in northern Gaza as the Israeli military launched operations against Hamas fighters, who it says are regrouping in areas they had already seized in attacks months ago.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the main hospitals still operating in the north, had been “targeted” by Israeli forces and had to be evacuated. Approximately 150 staff and dozens of patients were evacuated from the facility, including patients in intensive care and infants in incubators, who were said to have been “exposed to artillery fire.” Announced. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The nearby Aouda hospital has been under siege by troops for the past three days and artillery shells hit the fifth floor, hospital officials said Tuesday. International medical organization Doctors Without Borders said a day earlier there was a shortage of drinking water in Aouda.
The war between the two countries began on October 7, when Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 250 hostages. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has charged Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohamed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh with crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder and sexual violence.
Israel launched an offensive in response to the October 7 attack, which devastated the Gaza Strip and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, the Gaza Strip Health Ministry said, but the number was not in combat. There is no distinction between soldiers and combatants.
Khan’s request for an arrest warrant on Monday deepens Israel’s global isolation amid mounting criticism from its closest allies over the war. France, Belgium and Slovenia each said they supported Khan’s decision.
In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz traveled to France on Tuesday to urge France to “declare loud and clear” that the warrant requests against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Gallant “are unacceptable to you and to the French government.”
His meetings there could shape how countries use the warrant (if it is eventually issued) and whether it could pose a threat to Israeli leaders. A panel of three ICC judges will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant and allow the case to proceed. It typically takes judges two months to make such a decision.
Israel still enjoys support not only from its largest ally, the United States, but also from other Western countries that have expressed opposition to the decision. But if a warrant is issued, it could complicate foreign travel for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, even though Israel itself is not a member of the court and does not face any immediate risk of prosecution.
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Goldenberg reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Majidi Mohammed in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, Jack Jeffrey in Jerusalem, Aamer Madani in Washington, John Lester in Paris and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
