Outside calls continued Thursday for the urgent provision of needed aid within the Gaza Strip, as Israel acknowledged sending tanks and troops across the border for a brief period to “prepare the battlefield” before an expected ground offensive aimed at destroying Hamas.
The overnight Israeli raid came after more than two weeks of devastating airstrikes that have left thousands dead and more than one million Palestinians displaced from their homes in the small, densely populated territory. Israel has imposed a suffocating siege on Gaza ever since Hamas’s rampage and hostage-taking in southern Israel on Oct. 7 ignited the war.
Amid the conflict, civilians in Gaza are running out of food, water and medicine, and United Nations workers have barely any fuel left to support relief missions.
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Arab leaders made a joint plea on Thursday for a ceasefire to end civilian suffering and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while UN officials reiterated that the little aid that has crossed into the territory at the border with Egypt is not nearly enough.
In a post shared on social media, Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian chief, warned that “aid is barely trickling in” to Gaza, as civilians face ongoing risks.
Cindy McCain, the head of the UN’s World Food Program, said overly stringent checks at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border were slowing the flow of humanitarian aid to a “dribble” as hunger grows among Palestinians there.
“We’ve gotten a few — a dribble, just a dribble — of trucks in,” McCain told Reuters. “We need to get a large amount in. We need safe, unfettered access into Gaza so that we can feed and make sure that people don’t starve to death, because that’s what’s happening.”
The war, now in its 20th day, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said on Thursday that more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed so far — more than three times the number killed in the six-week-long Gaza War in 2014. In the occupied West Bank, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, according to Israeli officials, mostly civilians who died in the initial Hamas attack. The country’s military said on Thursday that the number of people confirmed held hostage in Gaza is 224 and could rise higher.
On Thursday, Global Affairs Canada said seven Canadian citizens have now been confirmed killed in the war. Two more are missing.
Airstrikes continue
During the overnight raid, the Israeli military said soldiers struck fighters, militant infrastructure and anti-tank missile launching positions. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a military spokesperson, said the incursion was “part of our preparations for the next stages of the war.”
Israel also said it had also carried out some 250 airstrikes across Gaza in the last 24 hours, targeting tunnel shafts, rocket launchers and other militant infrastructure.
Israeli airstrikes hit a densely populated refugee camp in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis on Thursday, levelling more than eight homes belonging to an extended family and killing at least 15 people. Ambulances raced to the scene as dust from the collapsing buildings hung in the air.
The blast zone was a chaotic wasteland of crumbled concrete and twisted metal. Rescuers carried wounded people covered in grey dust. The body of a boy was dug out from beneath a concrete slab, where his head had come to rest next to the foot of another person entombed in the wreckage.
On Wednesday, the wife, son, daughter and grandson of Wael Dahdouh, a veteran Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, were killed in an Israeli strike. Dahdouh and other mourners attended the funerals on Thursday.
The Israeli military, which accuses Hamas of operating among civilians, said its strikes killed militants and destroyed military targets. Gaza militants have fired unrelenting rocket barrages into Israel since the conflict started. One struck a residential building in the central city of Petah Tikva on Thursday, with no injuries reported.
Nine Arab countries — including key U.S. allies and nations that have signed peace or normalization deals with Israel — issued a joint statement on Thursday calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the targeting and death of civilians.
Fuel supplies critical
Hospitals in Gaza struggled to treat masses of wounded with dwindling resources. Health officials said the death toll was soaring as Israeli jets pounded Gaza. Workers pulled dead and wounded civilians, including many children, out of landscapes of rubble in cities across the territory.
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A warning by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, over depleting fuel supplies raised alarm that the humanitarian crisis could quickly worsen.
“The hospitals will not be able to deliver lifesaving services nor keep the life support machines nor the incubators on if they do not receive fuel that will help their generators generate electricity for all these machines,” said Tamara Alrifai, a UNRWA spokesperson.
“We are very, very, very worried about the inability of hospitals to continue receiving war wounded, pregnant women that need to deliver or all kinds of other sick people in need of help.”
In recent days, Israel let a small number of trucks with aid enter from Egypt but barred deliveries of fuel — needed to power generators — saying it believes Hamas will take it. According to Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, there is enough fuel inside Gaza to supply hospitals and water pumps “for days,” if Hamas would share it.
An official with the International Committee of the Red Cross said it hopes to bring in nearly a half dozen trucks filled with vital medical supplies.
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“This is a small amount of what is required, a drop in the ocean,” said William Schomburg, head of the sub-delegation in Gaza. “We are trying to establish a pipeline.”
UNRWA has been sharing its own fuel supplies so that trucks can distribute aid, bakeries can feed people in shelters, water can be desalinated and hospitals can keep vital equipment working.