Around 100 aid lorries enter Gaza as Israel begins ‘tactical pause’
Against the backdrop of a looming hunger crisis in the Gaza Strip, large-scale aid deliveries reached the besieged and embattled coastal area for the first time in months on Sunday.
A convoy of around 100 lorries carrying goods for the suffering population entered the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing, according to sources in the Palestinian territory.
A few hours earlier, the Israeli military announced that it would observe a daily self-declared “tactical pause in military activity for humanitarian purposes” in parts of the Gaza Strip from 10 am to 8 pm (0700-1700 GMT) until further notice.
The pause applies to al-Mawasi in the south-west of the coastal strip, Deir al-Balah in the centre and Gaza City in the north – areas where the Israeli army is not operating, it said.
Israel designated al-Mawasi as a “humanitarian zone” earlier in the war. However, the military has since attacked there multiple times, resulting in many deaths. Deir al-Balah is home to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) central warehouse, which the WHO said was damaged when Israeli ground troops first entered the area.
In addition, humanitarian corridors will be in place from 6 am to 11 pm to allow the UN and aid organizations to deliver food and medicine to the population in Gaza, the military said.
Israel’s actions come in response to growing international criticism of its military operations in the Palestinian territory. Since Israel ended a ceasefire in March, only limited aid has reached the area.
The WHO recently warned of a deadly hunger crisis among the approximately 2 million residents of the Gaza Strip. Israel denies the risk of a hunger crisis, instead describing it as a “campaign” by the Islamist group Hamas.
The Gaza war was triggered by the attack by Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza.
Since then, nearly 60,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to the health authority controlled by Hamas. These figures, which cannot be independently verified, do not distinguish between civilians and fighters but are considered largely reliable by UN organizations.
Overnight, seven pallets of aid – including flour, sugar and canned food – provided by international organizations were dropped into the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said.
The Times of Israel newspaper said this was the first time Israel has dropped aid supplies into the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war, having previously only allowed other countries to carry out such deliveries.