Death toll in Gaza surges in early Israeli attacks
At least 25 have been killed in Israeli strikes on several areas throughout the Gaza Strip since dawn, hospital sources tell Al Jazeera.
Current aid flows into Gaza ‘a drop in the ocean’: UN
Carl Skau, chief operating officer of the World Food Programme (WFP), says current aid flows into Gaza are “a drop in the ocean” and much higher volumes are needed.
Speaking to Al Jazeera outside the United Nations in New York, Skau said the WFP currently averages about 80 aid trucks a day into Gaza, where at least 500-600 are desperately needed.
He said the programme is not able to reach Palestinians in the north, where Israel is waging a heavy offensive on Gaza City, while the “complete breakdown of law and order” in the Strip means the most vulnerable are not receiving supplies.
‘Trickle’ of aid insufficient to address Gaza catastrophe
Martin Griffiths, director of Mediation Group International, has warned that starvation in Gaza continues to spread as Israeli troops press deeper into the cut-off north.
“It’s either displacement or death in Gaza City, or displacement and death in al-Mawasi,” Griffiths said, referring to the area in the south of the Strip that Israel designated a “humanitarian zone”.
Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed in a slim slice of sandy land with no healthcare or sanitary facilities in al-Mawasi, he noted.
Griffiths said of the minimum 500 trucks of humanitarian aid needed, only about 80 are entering the Strip daily: “It’s a trickle.”
The former senior UN official has spent decades on aid operations front lines around the globe. He told Al Jazeera he’s never witnessed anything like the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding now in Gaza.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, and the brazen nature in which Prime Minister Netanyahu set out his stall on Friday still haunts us.”
‘Everything is getting worse’: Palestinians flee northern Gaza
Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza by Israel’s offensive on Gaza City say they face dire living conditions and acute food shortages.
Mohammed al-Buhaisi said he wished he “stayed in the north and died there”. “Although it’s dangerous at least there is water and food,” he said. “Here it is safer but there is almost no food.”
Another man said the situation faced by expelled Palestinians is deteriorating rapidly. “We always say we hope things will get better. Everything is getting worse.”
Palestinians escape southward after Israel forcibly expelled residents of Gaza City
77 Palestinians killed in past 24 hours
The Health Ministry says 77 Palestinians have been killed and 265 others wounded in Israel’s army onslaught over the past 24 hours in war-ravaged Gaza. Among the dead were 17 people killed while waiting for food near US and Israel-backed distribution points. Another 89 aid seekers were wounded by gunfire.
