Jordan and the UAE have dropped aid into Gaza after Israel began a “tactical pause” in fighting to mitigate a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Jordan’s military said its planes, working with the UAE, had delivered 25 tonnes of aid in three drops on Sunday. A lorry convoy also entered from Egypt and another is due from Jordan.
Israel said on Sunday it would halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza and allow aid corridors, to “refute the false claim of intentional starvation”.
However, medics reported nine killed and 54 injured by Israeli fire near an aid convoy route in central Gaza. An airstrike also hit a residential block an hour after a pause came into effect on Saturday.
EPALocal sources told the BBC that nine people were shot in the Netzarim Corridor along Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza, where many civilians had gathered in anticipation of incoming UN aid convoys. Victims were taken to al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, a medical official at the facility said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops “fired warning shots” at a “gathering of suspects” approaching them. It said it was not aware of any casualties.
Meanwhile, BBC Verify geolocated an airstrike to Midhat Al-Wahidy Street in Al-Rimal district of western Gaza City – which Israel had designated an hour before as an area where operations would cease.
The verification was based on witness reports and two geolocated videos published earlier on Sunday. The IDF said it had checked the coordinates and were not aware of a strike.
Food aid trucks arriving in the strip on Sunday were swarmed as desperate Palestinians tried to grab bags of flour from an aid truck near a food distribution point in Zikim, northern Gaza.
Israel has come under intense international pressure over recent weeks to allow aid into the territory it controls, amid reports of mass starvation.
The UN’s World Food Programme says a third of the two million population of Gaza does not eat for several days at a time, and a quarter were “enduring famine-like conditions”.
More than 100 people have been reported by the Hamas-run health ministry to have died from malnutrition in recent days. Hundreds have meanwhile been killed by gunfire as they attempted to get food from the limited number of distribution points run by the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The UK’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, said Israel’s concessions over the weekend alone would not alleviate the suffering in Gaza.
“Whilst air drops will help to alleviate the worst of the suffering, land routes serve as the only viable and sustainable means of providing aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement.
“These measures must be fully implemented and further barriers on aid removed. The world is watching.”
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, meanwhile called for more international pressure to end the war. Every day, he said, brought “more destruction, more killings, and the further dehumanisation of Palestinians”.
Donald Trump, the US president, said he would be sending more aid to Gaza but urged this was “an international problem – it’s not a US problem”.
EPAResidents of Gaza have cautiously welcomed reports of a temporary humanitarian pause allowing food and medicine to enter the besieged enclave.
“Of course I feel a bit of hope again, but also worried that starvation would continue once the pause is over,” Rasha Al-Sheikh Khalil, a mother of four in Gaza City, told the BBC.
Neveen Saleh, a mother of six, said her family hadn’t eaten “a single fresh fruit or vegetable in four months”.
“There’s no chicken, no meat, no eggs. All we have are canned foods that are often expired and flour.”
Imad Kudaya, a local journalist in Gaza and from al-Mawasi, in the south of the Strip, said most of the air drop packages “have fallen in demilitarised places where if you go there you will put yourself in a very big risk”.
“Those place are evacuated and under Israeli control – so it is risky.”
Even as air drops and convoys headed into Gaza, Israel’s prime minister promised his country would “continue to fight, we will continue to act until we achieve all of our war goals – until complete victory”.
During his visit to Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev Desert, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had always allowed aid into Gaza, and that the UN had unfairly blamed his government for the crisis.
“There are secure routes. There have always been, but today it’s official. There will be no more excuses,” he said.
Under the new measures, Israel said it would suspend fighting in three populated areas of Gaza for 10 hours a day and open secure routes for aid delivery.
The IDF said it would open humanitarian corridors for aid convoys in Gaza to allow the UN and other organisations to deliver food and medicine to Palestinians across the strip.
The routes would be in place from 06:00 to 23:00 local time (04:00 BST to 21:00 BST).
The pause in military activity would take place in three areas – Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City – from 10:00 to 20:00 local time (08:00 BST to 18:00 BST) each day until further notice, the IDF added.
Israel’s apparent concessions followed its acceptance of a Jordanian and UAE plan, backed by the UK, to air drop aid into Gaza.
Israel launched a war in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 59,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
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