GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,665 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
The toll includes 62 deaths in the previous 48 hours, according to the ministry, which also said 103,076 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
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, a 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 from regrouping in already-ravaged north Gaza, Israel began a major air and ground assault just over a month ago. – AFP
