UN agency says warehouse hit
Strike comes amid mounting efforts to bring food to besieged territory
Gaza Strip: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said one of its warehouses in war-ravaged Gaza was hit, amid mounting efforts to bring food to the besieged Palestinian territory.
The Israel-hamas conflict raging since Oct 7 has caused mass civilian deaths, reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland and sparked warnings of looming famine in the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.
“We can confirm that an UNRWA warehouse/distribution centre in Rafah (southern Gaza) has been hit,” the United Nations agency said.
“We do not yet have more information on what exactly happened nor the number of UNRWA staff impacted,” agency spokesman Juliette Touma said.
“UNRWA uses this facility to distribute much-needed food and other lifesaving items to displaced people in southern Gaza.”
The health ministry in Hamasrun Gaza meanwhile said four people were killed in the “bombing of the warehouse”.
It came as donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts to rush food to the impoverished territory.
A Spanish charity vessel, the Open Arms, was on its way to Gaza from Cyprus, after setting sail a day earlier towing a barge with 200 tonnes of aid, in a first voyage meant to open a maritime corridor.
The European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the humanitarian crisis “is manmade”.
“If we look at alternative ways to provide support, it’s because the land crossings have been artificially closed,” he said, charging that “starvation is being used as a weapon of war”.
The Israeli army said its troops were “intensifying operations” in the southern Gaza Strip, including the biggest city there, Khan Yunis.
Weeks of talks involving US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators had aimed to bring a truce and hostage release deal before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but missed the Monday deadline.
Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-ansari said that, although talks continued, “we are not near a deal”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has doubled down on his pledge to “destroy Hamas” – including by sending troops into Gaza’s last area so far spared ground operations, far-southern Rafah.
The prospect of a Rafah invasion has sparked global alarm because it is crowded with almost 1.5 million mostly displaced people.
Gaza’s dire food shortages after more than five months of war and siege have killed 27 people through malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
“We have been fasting against our will for two months or more,” said Fahd al-ghoul, a resident of Jabalia Camp in the north.
“Now with Ramadan, nothing changes in our reality,” the 50-year-old added.
The British foreign office on Wednesday said 150 tonnes of UK aid had entered Gaza, adding that a field hospital would also arrive this week.
As aid agencies warn the truck deliveries and airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate need, European nations and the United States have announced plans to send more relief goods by sea.
US President Joe Biden last week announced plans for the military to build a pier on Gaza’s coast, and four US Army vessels left a base in Virginia on Tuesday carrying about 100 soldiers and equipment.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to dramatically increase the amount of food aid getting into Gaza, saying supplies allowed in since the outbreak of the war remain insufficient.
“We need to see flooding the zone when it comes to humanitarian assistance for Gaza,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
The top US diplomat called on Netanyahu’s government to open more regular and predictable access points for overland delivery of food and other humanitarian supplies to avert the looting of relief convoys by Palestinians who Blinken said feel compelled to “charge at the trucks”. — Agencies