As the UN prepares to vote, Israel bombs the Gaza aid crossing

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Staff Reporter

3 years ago

UN office in Gaza receives reports of Israeli forces summarily executing Palestinian men

Israel bombed a newly reopened aid crossing point on Thursday, hours before the United Nations Security Council was to make another attempt to pass a much-delayed resolution on pausing the Gaza fighting.

Separate diplomatic efforts continued for a fresh truce and captive release deal in the worst-ever Gaza war.

The United Nations human rights office in Ramallah said it had received reports that Israeli troops had “summarily killed” at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men and then ushered women and children into a room and threw grenades in Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood this week

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the allegations as “yet another example of the partisan and prejudiced approach against Israel” by the UN body.

Israel has been under increasing pressure from allies, including the United States which provides it with billions of dollars in military aid, to protect civilians.

The UN estimates 1.9 million Gazans are displaced, out of a population of 2.4 million.

With their homes destroyed, they are living in crowded shelters and struggling to find food, fuel, water and medical supplies. Diseases are spreading, and communications have been repeatedly cut.

On Thursday a UN monitoring system said every single person in Gaza is expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity in the next six weeks.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel began a relentless bombardment of targets in Gaza, alongside a ground invasion, which Gaza’s government on Wednesday said has killed at least 20,000, mostly women and children.

Munir al-Bursh, director of the health ministry, was among the latest to be wounded while his daughter was killed in an Israeli bombardment on Jabalia, in northern Gaza, the ministry said.

According to the UN, the number of aid trucks entering Gaza is well below the daily pre-war average.

After weeks of pressure, Israel approved the temporary reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing on Friday to enable aid deliveries directly to Gaza, rather than through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.

On Thursday an Israeli strike killed Bassem Ghaben, the head of the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom, the crossings authority and the health ministry said.

Three other people were also killed when Israeli aircraft targeted the infrastructure, they said.

Israeli officials did not immediately respond to requests from AFP for comment.

The UN secretary-general’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, was “unable to receive (aid) trucks” via Kerem Shalom following the “drone strike” and the World Food Programme suspended operations at the crossing.

The war has sparked fears of wider conflict. There have been regular exchanges of fire over the Lebanon border, and missiles from Iran-backed Yemeni rebels have disrupted Red Sea shipping.

Israeli strikes killed a woman in a south Lebanon village on Thursday, Lebanese media and rescuers said, with retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah fighters wounding two civilians, according to Israel’s military.

Staff Reporter