Israel says opens Gaza aid crossing, ahead of US deadline

Operation includes the delivery of food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army announced the opening Tuesday of an additional aid crossing into Gaza, on the eve of a US-imposed deadline to improve humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in the war-ravaged territory.

“As part of the effort and commitment to increase the volume and routes of aid to the Gaza Strip, the ‘Kissufim’ Crossing was opened today,” the army said in a joint statement with COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.

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“The operation... includes the delivery of food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment to central and southern Gaza,” they said, adding it involved the military, COGAT and defence ministry.

“The IDF (Israeli army), through COGAT, will continue to operate in accordance with international law to facilitate and ease the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”

Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel it had until November 13 to improve aid delivery to Gaza or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter.

The letter was sent weeks before the November 5 US presidential election won by Donald Trump, who has promised to give Israel freer rein.

Although outgoing President Joe Biden had repeatedly urged Israel to deliver more humanitarian aid and protect civilians, he mostly stopped short of using leverage such as cutting off weapons.

Kissufim, near a kibbutz across from southern Gaza that was attacked in the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault that sparked the war, has mostly been in disuse except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,603 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

‘People need everything’: Gaza aid far from enough

In Geneva, the UN on Tuesday warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza had dwindled further, with the situation in the besieged north especially “catastrophic”.

The warning from UNRWA, the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, came as Israel said it was opening an additional aid crossing into Gaza on the eve of a US-imposed deadline to improve humanitarian conditions in the war-ravaged territory.

Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved ahead of Wednesday’s deadline, Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA emergencies officer, highlighted that “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin last month cautioned Israel that it had until November 13 to let more aid into Gaza or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s primary supporter.

The letter was sent weeks before the November 5 US presidential election won by Donald Trump, who has promised to give Israel freer rein.

Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video-link from Gaza, Wateridge said that “the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip... That is for 2.2 million people”.

“Children are dying. People are dying every day,” she said, stressing that “people here need everything”.

The situation is at its worst in northern Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment at the weekend said that famine was imminent.

No food was permitted to enter besieged northern Gaza for an entire month, Wateridge said, adding that UN requests to access the area have been repeatedly denied.

Wateridge said that testimonies from the north painted “an endlessly horrific” picture that was becoming “more critical” by the hour.

“Hospitals have been bombed, the doctors inform us that they have run out of blood supplies, they have run out of medicine... there are bodies in the streets.”

Vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in already-ravaged north Gaza, Israel began a major air and ground assault just over a month ago.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,603 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.