Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
Israel pressed ahead Tuesday with its intensified genocidal operations in Gaza despite mounting international criticism, launching airstrikes that killed at least 85 Palestinians, including women and children.
Meanwhile, two days after “minimal” aid began entering Gaza, the desperately needed new supplies have not yet reached people in the territory, which has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, according to the United Nations. Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents are at high risk of famine.
U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher earlier on Tuesday said that over 14,000 children could die in Gaza in the next 48 hours if sufficient aid did not reach them in time.
Calling the figure “utterly chilling,” Fletcher said that he “wants to save as many as these 14,000 babies as we can in the next 48 hours.”
Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) had earlier this month said that nearly 2,90,000 children in Gaza are on the brink of death due to Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid.
At least 57 Palestinians have so far starved to death in Gaza, causing international outrage against Israel’s alleged weaponisation of starvation, which amounts to a war crime.
Under pressure, Israel agreed this week to allow a “minimal” amount of aid into the Palestinian territory after preventing the entry of food, medicine and fuel for three months.
After the first five trucks entered Monday, dozens more began entering via the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday afternoon, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said. The aid included flour for bakeries, food for soup kitchens, baby food and medical supplies. The U.N. humanitarian agency said it is prioritizing baby formula in the first shipments.
Marmorstein said Israel would allow dozens of aid trucks per day — far less than the 600 that entered daily during the latest ceasefire that Israel broke in March.
The United Nations humanitarian agency received approval for about 100 trucks to enter Gaza, spokesman Jens Laerke said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he decided to let in limited aid after pressure from allies, who told him they couldn’t support Israel while devastating images of starvation were coming out of Gaza.
Israel’s 19-month-long genocidal war on Gaza has so far killed over 53,339 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded at least 121,034. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, the updated death toll stands at 61,700, as thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
