By Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Palestinians in Gaza were still waiting for aid to arrive, U.N. officials said on Wednesday, two days after the Israeli government said it had lifted an 11-week-old blockade that has brought the Palestinian enclave to the brink of famine.
The Israeli military said five aid trucks entered Gaza on Monday and 93 on Tuesday but even those minimal supplies have not made it to Gaza’s soup kitchens, bakeries, markets and hospitals, according to aid officials and local bakeries that were standing by to receive supplies of flour.
“None of this aid – that is a very limited number of trucks – has reached the Gaza population,” said Antoine Renard, country director of the World Food Programme (WFP).
A United Nations spokesperson said trucks were still in the loading area of Kerem Shalom, the sprawling logistics hub at the southeastern corner of the Gaza Strip, because access to the rest of Gaza was too insecure to allow safe distribution.
However, two merchants familiar with the matter told Reuters late on Wednesday that at least 15 aid trucks left the Kerem Shalom crossing en route to World Food Program warehouses in central Gaza.
The Israeli blockade has left Gazans in an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, despite growing international and domestic pressure on Israel’s government, which one opposition figure said risked turning the country into a “pariah state”.
“There is no flour, no food, no water,” said Sabah Warsh Agha, a 67-year-old woman from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya sheltering in a cluster of tents near to the beach in Gaza City. “We used to get water from the pump, now the pump has stopped working. There is no diesel or gas.”
Thousands of tons of food and other vital supplies are waiting near crossing points into Gaza but until it can be safely distributed, around a quarter of the population remains at risk of famine, Renard said.
Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajramy, the head of the bakery owners’ society, said at least 25 bakeries that were told they would receive flour from the WFP had seen nothing and there was no relief for the hungry waiting for food.
“I’m here since eight in the morning, just to get one plate for six people while it is not enough for one person,” said Mahmoud al-Haw, who waits in panicked crowds for up to six hours a day hoping for some lentil soup to keep his children alive.
Israel imposed the blockade in March, saying Hamas was seizing supplies meant for civilians – a charge the group denies.
A new U.S.-backed system, using private contractors, is due to begin aid distribution in the near future.
As people waited, air strikes and tank fire killed at least 50 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian health authorities said. The Israeli military said air strikes hit 115 targets, which it said included rocket launchers, tunnels and unspecified military infrastructure.
The resumption of the assault on Gaza since March, following a two-month ceasefire, has drawn condemnation from countries that have long been cautious about expressing open criticism of Israel. Even the United States, the country’s most important ally, has shown signs of losing patience with Netanyahu.
Britain has suspended talks with Israel on a free trade deal, and the European Union said it will review a pact on political and economic ties over the “catastrophic situation” in Gaza. Britain, France and Canada have threatened “concrete actions” if Israel continues its offensive.
‘PARIAH STATE’
Within Israel, left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan drew a furious response from the government and its supporters this week when he declared that “A sane country doesn’t kill babies as a hobby” and said Israel risked becoming a “pariah state among the nations.”
Golan, a former deputy commander of the Israeli military who went single-handedly to rescue victims of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, leads the left-wing Democrats, a small party with little electoral clout.
But his words, and similar comments by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the BBC, underscored the deepening unease in Israel at the continuation of the war while 58 hostages remain in Gaza. Netanyahu dismissed the criticism.
“I heard Olmert and Yair Golan – and it’s shocking,” he said in a video statement. “While IDF soldiers are fighting Hamas, there are those who are strengthening the false propaganda against the State of Israel.”
Opinion polls show widespread support for a ceasefire that would include the return of all the hostages, with a survey from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem this week showing 70% in favour of a deal.
But hardliners in the cabinet, some of whom argue for the complete expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza, have insisted on continuing the war until “final victory”, which would include disarming Hamas as well as the return of the hostages.
As some trucks left the Israeli side of Kerem Shalom, a small group of Israeli protesters angry that any supplies were being let into Gaza while hostages were still held there tried to block them.
Netanyahu, trailing in the opinion polls and facing trial at home on corruption charges, which he denies, as well as an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, has so far sided with the hardliners.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Oct 7, which killed some 1,200 people by Israeli tallies and saw 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.
The campaign has killed more than 53,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip, where aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie; editing by Philippa Fletcher and Tomasz Janowski)
