Israel announces 'tactical pause' in Gaza fighting after outrage over starving Palestinians
The announcement issued by the Israel Defense Forces said it would be implementing "humanitarian corridors" for the safe movement of United Nations aid trucks and "humanitarian pauses" in some of Gaza's most densely populated areas.
The military's "tactical pause" will take place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the areas where the Israeli military is not operating: Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah and Gaza City, the IDF said, and will continue daily "until further notice."
Additional secure routes will be in place between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. to enable the safe passage of aid trucks, the IDF said, adding it is "prepared to expand the scale of this activity as required."
Trucks began moving into Gaza from Egypt after Israel's announcement, with the Egyptian Red Crescent saying the convoy included over 100 aid trucks containing more than 1,200 tons of food.
However, a spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry, Dr. Khalil al-Daqran, told NBC News that 25 people had been killed by Israeli army fire so far on Sunday morning, including 11 people seeking aid in central Gaza. Al-Daqran added that Israeli airstrikes across the strip are ongoing.
The World Food Programme welcomed the implementation of humanitarian corridors, saying it has enough food already in the region, or on its way, to feed Gaza's entire population for three months. Gaza needs more than 62,000 tons of food assistance monthly, it said in the statement Sunday.
Israel also said it had air-dropped seven packages of aid into the enclave on Sunday, after inviting foreign countries to do the same. Aid delivery by air has been slammed by international organizations as a "distraction" from the roadblocks Israel has imposed on overland aid delivery, which remains the only way to get a meaningful amount of food and other supplies into Gaza.
"Aid drops are a grotesque distraction from the reality of what's needed on the ground in Gaza right now. They can never deliver the volume, the consistency or the quality of aid and services that's needed," Ciarán Donnelly, vice president of international programs at the International Rescue Committee, told the BBC.
An additional six people in Gaza have succumbed to malnutrition in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry, bringing the total to at least 133 people killed by starvation, including 87 children.
The enclave's wider population of some 2 million is also at risk of mass starvation, aid organizations have warned, slamming Israel's aid delivery mechanism, which they say is riddled with obstructive bureaucracy, delays and arbitrary denials.
Thousands of truckloads of aid are piled up outside Gaza's border crossings waiting to be delivered, but Israel says it's the responsibility of the United Nations aid agencies to distribute inside Gaza, which in turn blame Israel for erecting bureaucratic and logistical hurdles so complex that only a fraction can be distributed across the enclave.
"The U.N. and international organizations are expected to improve the effectiveness of aid distribution and to ensure that the aid does not reach Hamas," the IDF said Saturday.
Israel has long maintained that aid restrictions are in place to prevent Hamas from stealing the food, though an internal U.S. government analysis found no evidence of systematic theft of the supplies by Hamas over the past 20 months.
OCHA, the U.N.'s humanitarian aid agency, and the World Food Programme, have previously maintained that they have not seen evidence of Hamas diverting aid.
Israel lifted its nearly three-month total aid blockade in May to allow some organizations to distribute a limited amount of aid, and has maintained that there's no hunger inside Gaza, with the IDF saying on Saturday that "there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip; this is a false campaign promoted by Hamas."
International aid agencies, hospitals and medical organizations, as well as NBC News' reporting on the ground, have widely documented mounting hunger across Gaza.
"Food crisis in Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe," Jagan Chapagain, chief executive of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said Sunday in a post on X, adding: "Even the carers are not getting enough food to stay healthy enough to care for others."
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The Hill
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USA Today
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- USA Today
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Thompson (R-Pa.) … Sean Savett … Priscilla Painton of Simon & Schuster … Katie Wheelbarger … Alex Wirth of Quorum … Andy Spahn … Paul McLeod … Cecilia Muñoz … retired Adm. Craig Faller … Johanna Persing … Jeremy Adler … Prime Policy Group's Stefan Bailey … John Connell of Sen. Todd Young's (R-Ind.) office … Linda Feldmann … Gaurav Parikh … Bobby Cunningham of the Vogel Group … Live Action's Lila Rose … Bobby Saparow … Jeremy Deutsch of Capitol Venture … Anna McCormack of Rep. David Rouzer's (R-N.C.) office … MSNBC's Denis Horgan … Juan Mejia … former Reps. Dave Brat (R-Va.) and Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) … Ashley Gonzalez … former Commerce Secretary Don Evans … CNN's Susan Durrwachter … former CIA Director John Deutch … Seth Waugh … Kate Thompson of the Russell Group … Air Force's Charlie McKell … Susan Phalen … Nicholas Anastácio of National Journal … Brayden Karpinski … POLITICO's Brian Tran-Dac … Andrew Grossman Send Playbookers tips to playbook@ or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
