The United Nations (UN) has suspended all food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to a lack of supplies and an untenable security situation caused by Israel’s expanding military operation, which has deepened an already perilous humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The UN warned that humanitarian operations across the territory are nearing collapse, with over 1.1 million people facing catastrophic levels of hunger and the territory on the brink of famine.
Israel insists it puts no restriction on the number of trucks entering Gaza, but the UN says fighting has made it dangerous for aid workers to reach it. Israel has faced growing criticism from even its closest allies over the offensive that has laid waste to Gaza and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
A senior United States official said Israel has addressed many of the Biden administration’s concerns about a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah aimed at rooting out Hamas fighters there, but the US stopped short of greenlighting the Israeli invasion plan.
The warning came as Israel seeks to contain the international fallout from a request at the world’s top war crimes court for arrest warrants targeting both Israeli and Hamas leaders. The move garnered support from three European countries, including Israel’s key ally France.
The U.N’s World Food Program (WFP) said it was running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are now living, and if food and other supplies don’t resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread.”
The humanitarian crisis deepened after Israeli forces pushed into Rafah on May 6, seizing the vital Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been closed ever since. The nearby Awda hospital has been surrounded by troops the past three days, and an artillery shell hit its fifth floor, the hospital administration said Tuesday.
Israel responded to the Oct. 7 offensive with an offensive that has laid waste to Gaza and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The UN says some 1.1 million people in Gaza — nearly half the population — face catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine. Throughout the war, Rafah has been filled with scenes of hungry children holding out pots and plastic containers at makeshift soup kitchens, with many families reduced to eating only one meal a day.
The U.S. touted the $320 million pier project as a route for accelerated deliveries, but a second convoy on Saturday was met by Palestinian crowds who removed all the food from 11 trucks, and only five truckloads made it to the warehouse, the WFP said.
At the same time, battles have escalated in northern Gaza as Israeli troops conduct operations against Hamas fighters. One of the main hospitals still operating in the north, Kamal Adwan, was forced to evacuate after it was “targeted” by Israeli troops, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Around 150 staff and dozens of patients fled the facility, including intensive care patients and infants in incubators “under fire from shelling.”
The ICC prosecutor accused three Hamas leaders of war crimes over killings of civilians in the group’s Oct. 7 attack. The war between began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage.
Monday’s call by Khan for arrest warrants deepens Israel’s global isolation at a time when it is facing growing criticism from even its closest allies over the war. France, Belgium, and Slovenia each said they backed Khan’s decision.
Israel still has the support of its top ally, the United States, as well as other Western countries that spoke out against the decision. But if the warrants are issued, they could complicate international travel for Netanyahu and his defense minister, even if they do not face any immediate risk of prosecution because Israel itself is not a member of the court.
