Israel announces daily ‘pause’ in Gaza for aid deliveries

The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it would “interrupt” daily fighting around a road to southern Gaza to facilitate the delivery of aid, after months of warnings of famine in the besieged Palestinian territory.

The announcement of a “local and tactical pause in military activity” during the day in an area of ​​Rafah comes a day after eight Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion near the far southern town and three other soldiers died elsewhere, in one of the heaviest losses for the army in its war against Hamas militants.

United Nations agencies and humanitarian groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm over severe shortages of food and other essentials in the Gaza Strip, exacerbated by restrictions on land access and the closure of the point. Rafah’s key crossing point with Egypt since Israeli forces seized it in early May.

Israel has long defended its efforts to let aid into Gaza, including through its Kerem Shalom border near Rafah, accusing militants of looting supplies and aid workers of failing to distribute them to civilians.

“A local and tactical pause in military activity for humanitarian purposes will take place from 8:00 a.m. (05:00 GMT) to 19:00 (16:00 GMT) daily until further notice along the road leading from the Kerem Shalom terminal to Kerem Shalom border crossing, then towards the north,” a military statement said.

A map released by the military shows the declared humanitarian route extending to the European hospital in Rafah, about 10 kilometers from Kerem Shalom.

According to AFP correspondents in Gaza, no strikes, bombings or fighting were reported on Sunday morning, although the army stressed in a statement that there was “no cessation of hostilities in the south of the Gaza Strip.

The decision, which the military said was already in effect, is part of efforts to “increase the volumes of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip” following discussions with the UN and other organizations, he added.

The announcement also comes on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The United States, which has pressured close ally Israel as well as Hamas to accept a ceasefire plan presented by President Joe Biden, imposed sanctions on an Israeli extremist group on Friday for blocked and attacked humanitarian convoys bound for Gaza.

In Gaza City, in the north of the territory, “there is nothing left” to eat, said Umm Ahmed Abu Rass, a resident.

“What is this life?” she told AFP. “There is no fuel, no access to medical care… and there is no food or water.”

“We want to live.”

– Israel must “cling” to its war objectives –

The army said the eight soldiers killed Saturday were hit by an explosion while traveling in an armored vehicle near Rafah, where troops were engaged in fierce street fighting against Palestinian militants.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised news briefing that the explosion came “apparently from an explosive device placed in the area or from the firing of an anti-tank missile.”

Separately, two soldiers were killed during fighting in northern Gaza and another succumbed to wounds inflicted during recent fighting.

Saturday’s losses were among the heaviest for the army since the start of its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27, bringing its overall death toll to 309 since then.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences following “this terrible loss”.

In a statement, he said that “despite the heavy and worrying price to pay, we must cling to the objectives of the war.”

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the Palestinian group’s unprecedented October 7 attack left 1,194 people dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also captured 251 hostages. Of them, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,296 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The deputy executive director of the World Food Program, Carl Skau, said recently that “with the anarchy inside the Gaza Strip…and the active conflict”, it has become “almost impossible to provide the level aid that meets the growing demands on the ground.

G7 leaders said Friday that humanitarian agencies must be allowed to work unhindered in Gaza, calling for the “rapid and unhindered passage of humanitarian aid to civilians in need.”

– ‘Wider conflict’ –

Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators have been pushing for a new truce since a week-long pause in November, during which hostages were also released from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and an increase aid deliveries to the Palestinian territory.

But while diplomatic efforts have stalled, fears that the war could escalate into a broader conflict in the Middle East have been reignited in recent days by an escalation of violence between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Hamas.

Hezbollah said the intense strikes since Wednesday were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of one of its commanders.

Israeli forces responded with bombings, the army said, also announcing airstrikes on Hezbollah infrastructure across the border.

The two top UN officials in Lebanon called on all parties to cease-fire. “The danger of miscalculations leading to sudden and wider conflict is very real,” they said in a joint statement.

During a trip to the Middle East this week to promote a truce plan in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “the best way” to help resolve the violence between Hezbollah and Israel was ” a resolution of the conflict in Gaza and the achievement of a cease-fire”.

This does not happen.

Hamas has insisted on a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire – demands that Israel has repeatedly rejected.

Blinken said Israel supported the latest plan, but Netanyahu, whose far-right coalition partners are strongly opposed to a ceasefire, has not publicly endorsed it.

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