At least 82 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as aid fails to reach Palestinians
Deir al-Balah: Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite a surge in international anger at Israel’s widening offensive, killing at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals.
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday evening that although the aid had entered Gaza, aid workers
were not able to bring it to distribution points, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
The Israeli defence body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks were entering Gaza on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would be able to continue deeper into Gaza for distribution.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its staff had waited
several hours to collect aid from the border crossing in order to begin distribution but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
A few dozen Israeli activists opposed to Israel’s decision to allow aid into Gaza
while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages attempted to
block the trucks carrying the aid on Wednesday morning, but were kept back by
Israeli police.
A group of diplomats came under fire while visiting Jenin, a city in the Israel-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority.
The diplomats were on official mission to observe the humanitarian situation in Jenin when shots rang out. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the shooting.
An aid worker, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said a delegation of about 20 diplomats was being briefed about the situation in Jenin by the Palestinian Authority.
The group of regional, European and Western diplomats were standing near the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp when they heard gunshots just before 2 pm, though it was unclear where shots came from, she said.
