Israeli soldiers drive a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Israeli military on June 16 announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in the southern Gaza Strip to allow the deliveries of increased quantities of humanitarian aid.

The army said the pause would begin in the Rafah area at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT, 1 a.m. eastern) and remain in effect until 7 p.m. (1600 GMT, noon eastern). It said the pauses would take place every day until further notice.

The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for incoming aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, to deliver supplies to other parts of Gaza, the military said. It said the pause was being coordinated with the U.N. and international aid agencies.

The crossing has suffered from a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.

Israel’s eight-month military offensive against the Hamas militant group has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the U.N. reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. The international community has urged Israel to do more to ease the crunch.

From May 6 until June 6, the U.N. received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.

The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as the humanitarian need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in ramshackle tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination.

A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the U.N.’s fault that its cargos stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said the agencies have “fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed,” especially a lack of trucks.

The U.N. denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for U.N. trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom, which is right next to Israel’s border.

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It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorize drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers’ safety. Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have also been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza’s roads.

The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.

It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks as they move along the highway.

Israel bombarded the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah, where it has launched a ground incursion, as talks resumed on Wednesday in Cairo aimed at agreeing the terms of a truce in the seven-month war.

Despite international objections, Israel sent tanks into Rafah on Tuesday and seized the nearby crossing into Egypt that is the main conduit for aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

The White House condemned the interruption to humanitarian deliveries, with a senior U.S. official later revealing Washington had paused a shipment of bombs last week after Israel failed to address U.S. concerns over its Rafah plans.

The Israeli military said hours later it was reopening another major aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing.

But the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Kerem Shalom crossing — which Israel shut after a rocket attack killed four soldiers on Sunday — remained closed.

It came after a night of heavy Israeli strikes and shelling across Gaza. AFPTV footage showed Palestinians scrambling in the dark to pull survivors, bloodied and caked in dust, out from under the rubble of a Rafah building.

“We are living in Rafah in extreme fear and endless anxiety as the occupation army keeps firing artillery shells indiscriminately,” said Muhanad Ahmad Qishta, 29.

“Rafah is a witnessing a very large displacement, as places the Israeli army claims to be safe are also being bombed,” he told AFP.

Al-Ahli hospital said a strike on an apartment in devastated Gaza City killed seven members of the same family and wounded several other people.

‘Catastrophic’

An emergency doctor working in Rafah and neighbouring Khan Younis said that with humanitarian access compromised, the health situation was “catastrophic”.

“The smell of sewage is rife everywhere,” said Doctor James Smith. “It’s been getting worse over the course of the last couple of days.”

The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,844 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Militants also took about 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, among them 36 the military says are dead.

Talks aimed at agreeing a ceasefire resumed in Cairo on Wednesday “in the presence of all parties”, Egyptian media reported.

A senior Hamas official said the latest round of negotiations would be “decisive”.

“The resistance insists on the rightful demands of its people and will not give up any of our people’s rights,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the negotiations.

The official had previously warned it would be Israel’s “last chance” to free the scores of hostages still in militants’ hands.

Mediators have failed to broker a new truce since a week-long ceasefire in November saw 105 hostages freed, the Israelis among them in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Incursion condemned

Qatar, which has been mediating between the two sides, appealed “for urgent international action to prevent Rafah from being invaded and a crime of genocide being committed”.

The African Union condemned Israel’s Rafah incursion, while Russia warned it would destabilise an area sheltering more than one million people and called on Israel to strictly observe international humanitarian law.

A Palestinian analyst said Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing could be an attempt to create new facts on the ground, or a bid to “sabotage the truce talks”.

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“The takeover is also a symbol shown to the world that Hamas is not in control anymore,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, of Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

Israel’s seizure of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing came after Hamas said it had accepted a truce proposal — one Israel said was “far” from what it had previously agreed to.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the operation as “a very important step” in denying Hamas “a passage that was essential for establishing its reign of terror”.

Hours later, a senior U.S. administration official speaking on condition of anonymity said Washington had “paused one shipment of weapons last week” after Israel failed to address its concerns over the Rafah incursion, which the United States has vocally opposed.

The shipment had consisted of more than 3,500 heavy-duty bombs, the official said.

It was the first time President Joe Biden had acted on a warning he gave Mr. Netanyahu in April that U.S. policy on Gaza would depend on how Israel treated civilians.

Aid pier completed

The U.S. official said Washington was “especially focused” on the use of the heaviest 2,000-pound (907 kilograms) bombs “and the impact they could have in dense urban settings”.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said the U.S. military had completed construction of an aid pier off Gaza’s coast, but weather conditions meant it was currently unsafe to move it into place.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel might “deepen” its Gaza operation if negotiations failed to bring the hostages home.

“This operation will continue until we eliminate Hamas in the Rafah area and the entire Gaza Strip, or until the first hostage returns,” he said.

Egypt and Qatar have taken the lead in the truce talks, with Hamas saying Monday it had told officials from both countries of its “approval of their proposal regarding a ceasefire”.

Hamas member Khalil al-Hayya told the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel the proposal involved a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the return of displaced Palestinians and a hostage-prisoner exchange, with the goal of a “permanent ceasefire”.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office called the proposal “far from Israel’s essential demands”, but said the government would still send negotiators to Cairo.

Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into Gaza on Monday, advancing in tanks and other armored vehicles on the territory’s main city and freeing a soldier held captive by Hamas militants. The Israeli Prime Minister rejected calls for a ceasefire as airstrikes landed near hospitals where thousands of Palestinians are sheltering beside the wounded.

The military said a soldier captured during Hamas’ brutal October 7 incursion was rescued in Gaza — the first rescue since the weekslong war began. Military officials provided few details but said in a statement that Pvt. Ori Megidish, 19, was “doing well” and had met with her family.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed her home, saying the “achievement” by Israel’s security forces “illustrates our commitment to free all the hostages.”

He also rejected calls for a ceasefire to facilitate the release of captives or end the war, which he has said will be long and difficult. “Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,” he told a news conference. “That will not happen.”

Mr. Netanyahu, who faces mounting anger over Israel’s failure to prevent the worst surprise attack on the country in a half century, also said he had no plans to resign.

Hostage situation

Hamas and other militant groups are believed to be holding some 240 captives, including men, women and children. Mr. Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure to secure their release even as Israel acts to crush Hamas and end its 16-year rule over the territory.

Hamas, which has released four hostages, has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, including many implicated in deadly attacks on Israelis. Israel has dismissed the offer, and Mr. Netanyahu said the ground invasion “creates the possibility” of getting the hostages out, adding that Hamas will “only do it under pressure.”

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Hamas released a short video Monday purporting to show three other female captives. One of the women delivers a brief statement — likely under duress — criticising Israel’s response to the hostage crisis. It was not clear when the Hamas video was made.

Amos Aloni, whose daughter Danielle appeared in the video, told reporters that he and his wife were shocked when she appeared on TV but also felt “relief from her being alive and seeing her.”

Gaza operations

The military has been vague about its operations inside Gaza, including the location and number of troops. Israel has declared a new “phase” in the war but stopped short of declaring an all-out ground invasion.

Larger ground operations have been launched both north and east of Gaza City. Israel says many of Hamas’ forces and much of its militant infrastructure, including hundreds of miles (kilometers) of tunnels, are in Gaza City, which before the war was home to over 650,000 people, a population comparable to that of Washington, D.C.

Though Israel ordered Palestinians to flee the north, where Gaza City is located, and move south, hundreds of thousands remain, in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones. Around 117,000 displaced people hoping to stay safe from strikes are staying in hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside thousands of patients and staff, according to U.N. figures.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says nearly 672,000 Palestinians are sheltering in its schools and other facilities across Gaza, which have reached four times their capacity.

UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of “collective punishment” of the Palestinians, and of forcing their displacement from northern Gaza to the south, where they are still not safe.

Death toll

The death toll among Palestinians passed 8,300, mostly women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.

Lazzarini said 64 of the agency’s staff were killed in the past three weeks — the latest just two hours before he addressed an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, when an agency security official was killed with his wife and eight children.

‘Trapped’ Gazans

Most Gazans “feel trapped in a war they have nothing to do with” and “feel the world is equating all of them to Hamas,” he told the Security Council.

Video circulating on social media showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza blocking the territory’s main north-south highway.

The video, taken by a local journalist, shows a car approaching an earth barrier across the road. The car stops and turns around. As it heads away, a tank appears to open fire, and an explosion engulfs the car. The journalist, in another car, races away in terror, screaming, “Go back! Go back!” at an approaching ambulance and other vehicles.

The Gaza Health Ministry later said three people were killed in the car that was hit.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, declined to comment on where Israeli forces are deployed. He said additional infantry and armored, engineering and artillery units had entered Gaza and the operations would continue to “expand and intensify.”

The military said troops have killed dozens of militants who attacked from inside buildings and tunnels. It said that in the last few days, it had struck more than 600 militant targets, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching positions. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.

Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest. It was not possible to independently confirm battlefield claims made by either side.

Hospitals under threat

Meanwhile, crowded hospitals in northern Gaza came under growing threat.

Gaza’s Health Ministry shared video footage that appeared to show an explosion and a column of smoke near the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital for cancer patients. The hospital director, Dr. Sobhi Skaik, said it had sustained damage in a strike that endangered patients.

All 10 hospitals operating in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders, the U.N.’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said. Staff have refused to leave, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.

Strikes hit within 50 meters (yards) of Al Quds Hospital after it received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said. Some windows were blown out, and rooms were covered in debris. It said 14,000 people are sheltering there.

Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.

Conditions deterioriating

Beyond the fighting, conditions for civilians in Gaza are continually deteriorating.

With no central power for weeks and little fuel, hospitals are struggling to keep emergency generators running to operate incubators and other life-saving equipment. UNRWA has been trying to keep water pumps and bakeries running.

On Sunday, the largest convoy of humanitarian aid yet — 33 trucks — entered the territory from Egypt, and another 26 entered on Monday. Relief workers say the amount is still far less than what is needed for the population of 2.3 million people.

The fighting has raised concerns that the violence could spread across the region. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have engaged in daily skirmishes along Israel’s northern border.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel carried out airstrikes Monday against militants clashing with its forces in the Jenin refugee camp. Hamas said four of its fighters were killed there. As of Sunday, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 123 Palestinians, including 33 minors, in the West Bank, half of them during search-and-arrest operations, the U.N. said.