UN says 6,000 trucks worth of aid ready to enter Gaza

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

The commissioner of the UN's aid agency has said 6,000 trucks carrying food and aid are waiting to enter Gaza, amid growing calls for action to prevent further deaths from starvation.
Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine, has spoken out amid growing calls for more aid to enter the Strip.
In the last month, 48 people have died from starvation, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has said.
More than 100 aid organisations and dozens of governments including Australia this week called for Israel to increase the flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave, as local health authorities warn of growing rates of malnourishment and starvation.
In a post on social media platform X, Mr Lazzarini said a colleague described people in Gaza as "neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses".
"When child malnutrition surges, coping mechanisms fail, access to food & care disappears, famine silently begins to unfold,"he said.
Mr Lazzarini said his organisation's workers were themselves only surviving on one meal a day, and "most children our teams are seeing are emaciated, weak and at risk of dying".
He said the UNRWA had the equivalent of 6,000 trucks waiting to enter Gaza carrying food and medical supplies.
"Allow humanitarian partners to bring unrestricted [and] uninterrupted humanitarian assistance to Gaza."
The Israeli government has defended its handling of humanitarian aid, accusing Hamas of stealing aid and arguing the distribution of food and medicine in a war zone is complex.
Israel has also previously accused UNRWA of harbouring Hamas fighters, an allegation it denies.
Hamas has denied it is looting aid supplies.
It comes an Israeli team preparing to negotiate a potential ceasefire with Hamas left talks on Thursday, leading the militant group to accuse Israel of "stalling" progress.
Amid growing global pressure for an end to the war, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday its team of mediators would return to Israel.
They had been negotiating with the militant group Hamas in Qatar, but Mr Netanyahu's office said they were returning for "further consultation" on Hamas's response to ceasefire proposals.
Earlier, Israel said Hamas's latest response to the proposed ceasefire deal was "workable".
Two sources familiar with the negotiations in Qatar told Reuters Israel's decision to bring its delegation back home did not necessarily indicate a crisis in the talks.
A senior Hamas source told Reuters that there was still a chance of reaching a Gaza ceasefire agreement but it would take a few days because of what he called Israeli stalling.
The source said Hamas' response included requesting a clause that would prevent Israel from resuming the war if an agreement was not reached within the 60-day truce period.
A senior Israeli official was quoted by local media as saying the new text was something Israel could work with.
However, Israel's Channel 12 said a rapid deal was not within reach, with gaps remaining between the two sides, including over where the Israeli military should withdraw to during any truce.
Israel is facing international and domestic pressure to find a way to end the war.
Numerous news organisations, including the ABC, have reported that journalists they rely on to report on events inside Gaza are struggling to find food.
The Israeli government has not allowed the ABC to enter Gaza and report from there directly.
The conflict began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
In response, Israel's campaign against Hamas has killed more than 59,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities.
Millions more people have been displaced, and at least 113 people have died of starvation since the conflict began.
One local doctor in Gaza City told the ABC earlier this week that deaths from starvation were beginning to increase.
Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces had killed at least 40 people since dawn on Thursday, including six waiting for aid.
Israel's military said Hamas militants targeted a food distribution site in the south of the territory on Wednesday.
The militants, though, claimed they had shelled "an enemy command and control site".
Five of those killed on Thursday were in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah.
Through 21 months of fighting, both sides have clung to long-held positions, preventing two short-lived truces from being converted into a lasting ceasefire.
In Khan Younis, in the south, Umm al-Abd Nassar urged Hamas to secure a truce after her son was killed in an air strike on a camp for the displaced.
"They need to do something. Enough with this destruction and people dying," she told AFP.
Meanwhile, eight Israeli soldiers were wounded on Thursday local time when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Police have described the incident as a "terror attack".
"The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified," it said in a statement.
The army said two soldiers were "moderately injured" and six "lightly injured" in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel.
"The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified," the IDF said in a statement.
ABC/Reuters/AFP