“Welcome announcement of humanitarian pauses in Gaza to allow our aid through,” UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said on X.
Aid trucks started moving towards Gaza from Egypt, the Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV said on Sunday, after months of international pressure and warnings from relief agencies of starvation spreading in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel said that it began aid airdrops to Gaza on Saturday and was taking several other steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Israeli military said “humanitarian corridors” would be established for safe movement of United Nations convoys delivering aid to Gazans and that “humanitarian pauses” would be implemented in densely populated areas.
Dozens of trucks carrying tonnes of humanitarian aid moved towards the Karam Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in southern Gaza, the Al Qahera correspondent said from the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
International aid organisations say there is mass hunger among Gaza’s 2.2 million people, with food running out after Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, before resuming it in May with new restrictions.
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to distribute it. The United Nations says it is operating as effectively as possible under Israeli restrictions.
Israel’s announcement on airdrops came after indirect ceasefire talks in Doha between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas were broken off with no deal in sight.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the airdrops would be conducted in coordination with international aid organisations and would include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food.
Palestinian sources confirmed that aid had begun dropping in northern Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the military would “apply a ‘humanitarian pause’ in civilian centres and in humanitarian corridors” on Sunday morning. It provided no further details.
“The IDF emphasizes that there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip; this is a false campaign promoted by Hamas,” the Israeli military said in its Saturday statement.
“Responsibility for food distribution to the population in Gaza lies with the UN and international aid organizations. Therefore, the UN and international organizations are expected to improve the effectiveness of aid distribution and to ensure that the aid does not reach Hamas.”
The Israeli military stressed that despite the humanitarian steps, “combat operations have not ceased” in the Gaza Strip.
Separately, international activists on an aid ship that set sail from Italy en route to Gaza said in a post on X that the vessel had been intercepted.
The Israeli foreign ministry said on X that naval forces “stopped the vessel from illegally entering the maritime zone of the coast of Gaza,” that it was being taken to Israeli shores and all passengers were safe.
The UN said on Thursday that humanitarian pauses in Gaza would allow “the scale up of humanitarian assistance” and said Israel had not provided enough route alternatives for its convoys hindering aid access.
Dozens of Gazans have died of malnutrition in the past few weeks, according to the Gaza Health Ministry while 127 people have died due to malnutrition, including 85 children, since the start of the war, which began nearly two years ago.
On Wednesday, more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
The military also said on Saturday that it had connected a power line to a desalination plant, expected to supply daily water needs for about 900,000 Gazans.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters stormed Israeli towns near the border, killing some 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages on October 7, 2023. Since then, Israeli forces have killed nearly 60,000 people in Gaza, health officials there say, and reduced much of the enclave to ruins.
“In contact with our teams on the ground who will do all we can to reach as many starving people as we can in this window.”
Fletcher’s UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( OCHA) warned Friday that conditions on the ground in Gaza were “already catastrophic and deteriorating fast”.
“The starvation crisis is deepening,” it said, warning that hunger and malnutrition increase the risk of illnesses, and adding that the cnsequences can quickly “turn deadly”.
It said that “the trickle of supplies that are making it into the Strip are nowhere near adequate to address the immense needs”.
OCHA said UN teams were in place to ramp up deliveries into the Palestinian territory “as soon as they are allowed to do so”.
“If Israel opens the crossings, lets fuel and equipment in, and allows humanitarian staff to operate safely, the UN will accelerate the delivery of food aid, health services, clean water and waste management, nutrition supplies, and shelter materials,” it said.
OCHA said constraints imposed by the Israeli authorities had hampered humanitarians’ ability to respond.It said that on Thursday, for example, out of 15 attempts to coordinate humanitarian movements inside Gaza, four were “outright denied”, with another three impeded.
One was postponed, and two others had to be cancelled, meaning only five missions went ahead. On Friday OCHA issued an aid delivery plan in the event of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
