Key Points
- The UN Palestinian refugee agency has decried the killing of civilians in northern Gaza.
- The UN has called for a temporary truce to allow civilians to leave the north, citing dire humanitarian conditions.
- Health providers said they're running out of medical supplies, with hospitals unable to treat many of the injured.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency has called for a temporary truce to allow people to leave areas of northern Gaza as health officials said they were running out of supplies to treat patients injured in a three-week Israeli assault.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UNRWA relief agency, said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point, with bodies abandoned by roadsides or buried under rubble.
"In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die," he said in a statement on social media platform X overnight. "They feel deserted, hopeless and alone."
"I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places," he said.
The US has called on Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies into northern Gaza and Israel says aid has been delivered in scores of trucks as well as airdrops, but Gaza medics say the aid has not reached them.
Israel's military humanitarian unit, COGAT, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, said on Tuesday that 237 trucks containing humanitarian aid, including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment from Jordan and the international community, were transferred to the northern Gaza Strip over the past eight days.
This reported breakthrough in Israel’s blockade followed US threats to potentially cut weapon exports if the aid situation didn’t improve.
On Tuesday, Gaza health officials said more than 70 people had been killed by Israeli forces. They said that at least 57 of those were killed in the northern Gaza Strip. The bodies of dozens of people were on roadsides and under rubble, inaccessible to rescue teams because of ongoing strikes, they said.
"Many wounded have died before our eyes and we couldn't do anything for them," said Munir Al-Bursh, the director of the Gaza health ministry, who is currently in northern Gaza.
"Hospitals also ran out of coffins to prepare the dead and we have asked people to donate any fabric they have at home."
The Israeli military, which launched an assault against Hamas militants holding out in the northern town of Jabalia this month, says it is evacuating people along designated routes and has filtered out dozens of militants from civilians going south.
Israeli drones circled overhead, calling on Palestinians to evacuate areas around the town of Beit Lahiya, just north of Jabalia.
An Israeli air strike on Beit Lahiya on Saturday levelled a residential block, with at least 87 people killed or missing under rubble, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Many Palestinians fear the evacuation orders are part of an Israeli plan to clear the area to create a buffer zone that will enable Israel to control Gaza after the war.
The Israeli military denies the evacuations are part of a wider plan, saying it is moving people to separate them from Hamas fighters.
'Important opportunity'
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday urged Israel's leaders to work towards a ceasefire in Gaza.
Blinken is on his 11th trip to the Middle East since Hamas's attack on Israel more than a year ago triggered the Gaza war, and his first since Israel's conflict with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated last month.
The top US diplomat told Israel's leaders that the army's killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last week presented an "opportunity" for a truce and the release of the hostages Hamas seized during the October 7, 2023 attack.
During an earlier discussion with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken pressed for more aid to be allowed into the besieged Palestinian territory as concerns rise for tens of thousands of civilians trapped by a major Israeli assault in the hard-to-reach north.
A US official said that Netanyahu had recognised the "seriousness" of Blinken's warnings to ramp up aid access to Gaza, "but it's the results that matter".
Washington has warned it may suspend some of its military assistance if Israel does not quickly improve humanitarian access to the area.
