Palestinians in Gaza yesterday were left waiting for the promised arrival of food, despite mounting international and domestic pressure on the Israeli government to allow more aid to reach a population on the brink of famine after an 11-week blockade.
Fewer than 100 aid trucks have entered Gaza, Israeli military figures showed, since Monday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government agreed to lift the blockade that has forced Gazans into a desperate struggle to survive.
Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals said.
Photo: Reuters
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman Jens Laerke said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.
With airstrikes and tank fire continuing to pound the enclave, local bakers and transportation operators said they had yet to see fresh supplies of flour and other essentials.
Abdel-Nasser al-Ajramy, the head of the bakery owners’ society, said at least 25 bakeries that were told they would receive flour from the World Food Programme had seen nothing and there was no relief from the hunger for people waiting for food.
“There is no flour, no food, no water,” said Sabah Warsh Agha, a 67-year-old woman from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya sheltering in a cluster of tents near to the beach in Gaza City. “We used to get water from the pump, now the pump has stopped working. There is no diesel or gas.”
The resumption of the assault on Gaza since March, following a two-month ceasefire, has drawn condemnation from countries that have long been cautious about expressing open criticism of Israel. Even the US, the country’s most important ally, has shown signs of losing patience with Netanyahu.
The UK has suspended talks with Israel on a free-trade deal, and the EU said it would review a pact on political and economic ties over the “catastrophic situation” in Gaza. The UK, France and Canada have threatened “concrete actions” if Israel continues its offensive.
Within Israel, left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan drew a furious response from the government and its supporters this week when he declared that “a sane country doesn’t kill babies as a hobby” and that Israel risked becoming a “pariah state among the nations.”
Golan, a former deputy commander of the Israeli military who went single-handedly to rescue victims of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, leads a party with little electoral clout.
However, his words, and similar comments by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the BBC, underscored the deepening unease in Israel at the continuation of the war while 58 hostages remain in Gaza.
Although Netanyahu dismissed the criticism, opinion polls show widespread support for a ceasefire that would include the return of all the hostages, with a survey from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem this week showing that 70 percent of respondent were in favor of a deal.
Additional reporting by AP
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