Israel said that it would prevent humanitarian aid from entering Gaza because it is committed to forcing Hamas to release the remaining hostages of the October 7 attacks.
Help supplies, including food, fuel, water and drugs, have been blocked by Israel to enter Gaza since March 2, more than two weeks before the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group with a return to air attacks and the ground on the territory.
The Doctors Sans Frontières medical organization said on Wednesday that Gaza became a “mass tomb for the Palestinians”.
The Israeli army, on the other hand, said that it had converted 30% of Gaza to the buffer zone and that it had “obtained a complete operational control in several key areas and routes through the Gaza Strip”.
The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said: “Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population.”
“No one is currently planning to authorize humanitarian aid in Gaza, and there are no preparations to allow such aid,” said Katz, who has promised to degenerate the conflict with “huge force” if Hamas did not turn the hostages.
Amnesty International is one of the aid agencies that described Israel’s blockade on all supplies entering Gaza as a crime against humanity and a violation of international humanitarian law. Israel has denied any violation.
More than 51,000 Palestinians died in Gaza since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,600 since Israel took over air strikes and ground operations on March 18. The Gaza Ministry of Health does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but said that more than half of the dead were women and children.
13 other people were killed in air strikes overnight, with a well -known photographer, Fatema Hassouna, among those reported in the northern area of the band.
Doctors and field assistance groups said the humanitarian situation in Gaza became more serious day by day. “The situation is the worst that it was in 18 months in terms of deprivation of your basic necessities and the resumption of hostilities and attacks against the Palestinians in all Gaza,” said Mahmoud Shalabi, director of Medical Aid for Palestinians.
The resumption of aid to Gaza has become a very inflammatory political question in Israel. There are still 58 hostages in Gaza, which were caught in captivity after the attacks in Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, with 24 which would still be alive. Far -right figures in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu have declared that no help should be restored to the civilians of Gaza until Hamas accepts the release of the hostages.
“As long as our hostages languish in the tunnels, there is no reason for a single gram of food or any help to enter Wednesday in Gaza,” said Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Katz said that Israel intended to ultimately create his own “civil distribution infrastructure” to help Gaza, in order to prevent supplies from falling into the hands of Hamas activists, but he did not give any calendar or detail about how he would be established.
The reports suggested that this could involve Israeli defense forces which set up logistics centers for aid, and the aid agencies have verified the distribution of the distribution. However, the plan remains uncertain and the UN has so far refused to put the names of the employees.
The efforts of the mediators of Egypt, Qatar and the United States to restore the cease-fire collapsed in Gaza and the return, the hostages continued to strike stumbling blocks.
Katz said that regardless of the agreement concluded, the Israeli troops would remain in the buffer areas that she had occupied in Gaza, as well as in neighboring Syria and Lebanon.
Since the resumption of operations in March, Israeli troops have taken control of 30% of the Gaza Strip, establishing what they describe as an “operational security perimeter”. Hamas demanded that any hostage agreement must guarantee the withdrawal of Israeli Gaza troops.
Katz said: “Unlike the past, the (Israeli soldiers) do not evacuate the areas that have been eliminated and seized.” The soldiers “would remain in security areas as a buffer between enemy communities and (Israeli) in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza, as in Lebanon and Syria,” he said.
