Israel announced today that it was implementing a daily “tactical pause” in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid to flow into the war-torn enclave.
The IDF said in a statement that the ‘The pause in military activity for humanitarian purposes will take place from 08:00 to 19:00 daily until further notice along the road from Kerem Shalom crossing to Salah al-Din road and then northward.
Israel has long been criticized for its alleged refusal to allow aid into Gaza, leaving residents hungry and destitute.
In March, a UN-backed report said the number of people facing “catastrophic hunger” across the besieged enclave was 1.1 million, about half the population.
The assessment of the UN-backed initiative – a scale used by UN agencies, regional bodies and aid groups – came amid global pressure on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave of 2, 3 million people.
The IDF said it was beginning a daily pause in fighting.
The IDF said in a statement that “the pause of military activity for humanitarian purposes will take place from 08:00 to 19:00 daily.”
Israeli soldiers drive a tank near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
Sunday’s announcement was taken as part of efforts to “increase the volumes of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip” following talks with the UN and other organizations, the military said.
The World Health Organization has said that more than 8,000 children under five have been treated for acute malnutrition in Gaza.
From May 6 to June 6, the UN received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 trucks a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day aid groups say are needed.
The deputy executive director of the World Food Programme, Carl Skau, recently said that “with the anarchy within the Strip… and active conflict,” it has become “almost impossible to deliver the level of aid that meets the growing demands on the land”.
A spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli agency in charge of affairs in the Gaza Strip, said it was the UN’s fault that its cargo was piling up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom.
He said agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they haven’t solved,” especially a lack of trucks.
Palestinians in Gaza City perform Eid al-Adha prayers at the historic “Great Mosque of Omar”
Displaced Palestinians wait to collect food donated by a charitable group in Khan Younis
A Palestinian woman visits the grave of a relative killed in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The UN denies such accusations. He says fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for UN trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.
It also says the pace of deliveries has slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the location, a system Israel says was designed for driver safety. Due to the lack of security, in some cases aid trucks have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.
The new agreement aims to reduce the need to coordinate deliveries by providing an uninterrupted 11-hour period each day for trucks to enter and exit the crossing.
It was not immediately clear whether the military would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they moved along the highway.
The pause along the southern route comes as Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest ceasefire proposal, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration’s most focused diplomatic push to stop the fighting and free to the taken hostages. by the militant group.
While Biden described the proposal as Israeli, Israel has not fully accepted it and Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.
Israel’s eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group, sparked by the group’s Oct. 7 attack, has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread famine and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink. of famine.
The international community has urged Israel to do more to ease the crisis and said ongoing fighting, including in Rafah, has complicated aid deliveries throughout the war.
