The Israeli army has announced a daily “tactical pause in military activity” in part of the southern Gaza Strip to allow delivery of increased quantities of humanitarian aid, amid growing international criticism of its offensive there.
The army said the pause would begin in the Rafah area at 8 am (0500 GMT) and remain in effect until 7 pm (1600 GMT). It said the pause would take place every day until further notice.
The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, to deliver supplies to other parts of Gaza, the military said.
It said the pause was being coordinated with the UN and international aid agencies.
The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.
The announcement came shortly after the military said that another two Israeli soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza on Saturday, in addition to eight killed in a blast that engulfed their armoured vehicle in Rafah on the same day.
The losses, among the heaviest for the military since it began its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27, will probably fuel mounting calls for a ceasefire and heighten Israeli public anger over ultra-Orthodox exemptions from the military.
At least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza on Saturday. At least 37,296 have been killed since the Israeli offensive on the territory began, with thousands more believed to be buried under the rubble and tens of thousands wounded.
Israel’s eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine as Israel blocked the delivery of aid and cut off water supplies. The international community has urged Israel to allow more aid in.
From 6 May until 6 June, 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 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.
The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.
Cogat, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, claims there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from 2 May to 13 June, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.
A spokesperson for Cogat, Shimon Freedman, said it was the UN’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.
The UN denies such allegations. It says the 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 been slowed because the Israeli military must authorise drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.
The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.
It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they move along the highway.
Associated Press contributed to this report
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMihgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L2p1bi8xNi9pc3JhZWxpLW1pbGl0YXJ5LWFubm91bmNlcy1kYWlseS10YWN0aWNhbC1wYXVzZS1pbi1zb3V0aGVybi1nYXphLXRvLWFsbG93LWluLWFpZNIBhgFodHRwczovL2FtcC50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L2p1bi8xNi9pc3JhZWxpLW1pbGl0YXJ5LWFubm91bmNlcy1kYWlseS10YWN0aWNhbC1wYXVzZS1pbi1zb3V0aGVybi1nYXphLXRvLWFsbG93LWluLWFpZA?oc=5
2024-06-16 06:27:00Z
CBMihgFodHRwczovL3d3dy50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L2p1bi8xNi9pc3JhZWxpLW1pbGl0YXJ5LWFubm91bmNlcy1kYWlseS10YWN0aWNhbC1wYXVzZS1pbi1zb3V0aGVybi1nYXphLXRvLWFsbG93LWluLWFpZNIBhgFodHRwczovL2FtcC50aGVndWFyZGlhbi5jb20vd29ybGQvYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI0L2p1bi8xNi9pc3JhZWxpLW1pbGl0YXJ5LWFubm91bmNlcy1kYWlseS10YWN0aWNhbC1wYXVzZS1pbi1zb3V0aGVybi1nYXphLXRvLWFsbG93LWluLWFpZA
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar