The war has flattened large parts of northern Gaza, killed thousands of civilians and driven most of the population to the southern part of the besieged territory, where many are in crowded shelters and tent camps. Some 1.9 million Palestinians - about 90 per cent of Gaza’s population - have fled their homes.
They survive off a trickle of humanitarian aid. Since the weekend, Israel has allowed UN aid trucks to enter Gaza from a second location, Kerem Shalom, in Israel.
Dozens of desperate Palestinians surrounded aid trucks after they drove in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing some to stop before climbing aboard, pulling down boxes and carrying them off. Other trucks appeared to be guarded by masked people carrying sticks.
Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crossed into the Gaza Strip in Rafah. Photo / AP
“You cannot deliver aid under a sky full of airstrikes,” a spokesperson with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Juliette Touma, said on social media, while the agency estimated that more than 60 per cent of Gaza’s infrastructure had been destroyed in the war.
Telecom services in Gaza gradually resumed after a four-day communications blackout, the longest of several outages during the war that groups say complicate rescue and delivery efforts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel “will continue to fight until the end,” with the goal of eliminating Hamas, which triggered the war with its October 7 attack into southern Israel. Palestinian militants killed some 1200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured scores of hostages.
Netanyahu vows to bring back the estimated 129 hostages still in captivity. Anger over the mistaken killing of hostages is likely to increase pressure on him to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more of the remaining captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
Israeli soldiers exit a tunnel that the military says Hamas militants used to attack the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo / AP
Calls for a new ceasefire
In Israel at the weekend, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for an “immediate truce” aimed at releasing more hostages, getting larger amounts of aid into Gaza and moving toward “the beginning of a political solution.”
France’s Foreign Ministry said an employee was killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Rafah last week. It condemned the strike, which it said killed several civilians, and demanded clarification from Israeli authorities.
The foreign ministers of the UK and Germany, meanwhile, called for a “sustainable” ceasefire, saying too many civilians had been killed.
“Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote in the UK’s Sunday Times.
The US defence secretary is set to travel to Israel to continue discussions on a timetable for ending the war’s most intense phase. Israeli and US officials have spoken of a transition to more targeted strikes aimed at killing Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages, without saying when it would occur.
Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends, and that in exchange it will demand the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.
Hamas released over 100 of more than 240 hostages captured on October 7 in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners during a brief cease-fire in November. Nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Israel has rescued one hostage.
The Israeli military said it had discovered a large tunnel in Gaza close to what was once a busy crossing into Israel, raising new questions about how Israeli surveillance missed such conspicuous attack preparations by Hamas.
Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crosses into the Gaza Strip in Rafah. Photo / AP
Hostage shooting by Israel draws scrutiny
Military officials said that the three hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops had tried to signal that they posed no harm. It was Israel’s first such acknowledgement of harming hostages in the war.
The hostages, all in their 20s, were killed last week in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops are engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas. An Israeli military official said the shootings were against the army’s rules of engagement and were being investigated at the highest level.
Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields. But Palestinians and rights groups have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of recklessly endangering civilians and firing on those who do not threaten them, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, which has seen a surge of violence since the war began.
Israeli tanks are seen next to a destroyed building during a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo / AP
The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said. It has been said that thousands more casualties are buried under the rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but has said that most of those killed were women and children.
Israel’s military says 121 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive. It says it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.
