JERUSALEM: A UN agency warned it could be forced to stop aid operations in war-riven Gaza on Wednesday due to dwindling fuel supplies, as calls mounted for a humanitarian “pause” in fighting.
After 18 days of withering Israeli air strikes and a near-total land, sea and air blockade of the Palestinian territory, UN refugee agency UNRWA warned operations were at breaking point.
“If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip,” said the UN agency, which provides aid to 600,000 displaced Gazans.
Israel launched its campaign in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas militants on Oct 7.
Gunmen from the Palestinian group poured into Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,400 people and taking 222 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to “eliminate Hamas” and ensure it can no longer threaten Israeli civilians.
But there is growing international unease about the impact of Israel’s “Operation Swords of Iron”, which has killed thousands of Palestinians.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry claims 5,791 people have been killed in the war so far, many of them children.
Tuesday’s toll was more than 700 people, the Hamas-run ministry said, with the UN saying it was the highest reported in a single day since the war began.
AFP has not been able to independently verify these figures.
Aid agencies report hospitals are overwhelmed, generators lack fuel and shelters are heaving under the weight of an estimated 1.4 million displaced — more than half the population.
Since the war began a few dozen trucks with essential supplies have been allowed to cross the Egyptian border into Gaza, far fewer than necessary according to aid agencies.
The Palestine Red Crescent said Tuesday it had received the fourth batch of humanitarian aid, consisting of eight trucks.
The supplies have included medicines, food and water, but not fuel, which Israel fears could end up in Hamas’s hands.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said Gaza was now seeing “epic suffering” while calling on Israel to safeguard civilians.
“The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighbourhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming,” he told the UN Security Council in New York.
“I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza,” he said. “Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law.”
That warning drew an angry response from Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who cited the graphic ways in which Israeli civilians had been killed by Hamas, and demanded: “Mr secretary-general, in what world do you live?”
Israel and its allies have so far rebuffed calls for a blanket ceasefire, which the White House says would only benefit Hamas.
But US officials have indicated that a more limited “humanitarian pause” in certain areas could be on the table to allow aid in and to safeguard civilians.
President Joe Biden has said a full ceasefire could only be considered if and when Hamas releases the hundreds of hostages it is keeping captive in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued massing tens of thousands of troops around Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive.
That operation appears to have been stalled by concerns about objectives, the fate of hostages, civilian casualties and the difficulties of fighting in a densely populated area riven with underground tunnels.
“There are a lot of obstacles,”
one Israeli soldier serving with unit 601 of the military engineering corps told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“The enemy is spraying rockets and other things that I cannot detail to prevent us from progressing.” – AFP
