Israel's military on Sunday said it would pause fighting for 11 hours each day near a specific border crossing in southern Gaza to allow for more humanitarian aid to enter the area, but said fighting in Rafah would continue and the move does not signal a full stop to fighting in southern Gaza overall.
Aid arrives for Palestinian families sheltering in a warehouse belonging to the United Nations ... [+]
Israel Defense Forces said a "tactical pause of military activity" will take place every day from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the border of Gaza, Egypt and Israel, called the Kerem Shalom crossing, which allows access to Gaza and runs further north into the region.
Kerem Shalom is a main source of aid for the millions of people in Gaza who are facing displacement, starvation, disease and a lack of water and hygiene facilities, and humanitarian groups have increasingly warned about the conditions and lack of supplies in the area.
The United Nations earlier this month said humanitarian aid entering Gaza has dropped by roughly 66% since fighting in Rafah began in early May and is worst in the southern part of the region, near Kerem Shalom, Reuters reported.
More than 1,000 aid trucks had crossed into Gaza from Kerem Shalom and were waiting to be unloaded Sunday, the New York Times reported, but human rights activists said it wasn't clear how much the pause in fighting would actually impact aid reaching people in need.
Another key border gate crossing near the Egyptian border in Rafah remains closed.
"The aid is very much needed for the people here in Gaza. They need food, they need medicine, water, tents, really everything that you would expect,” Scott Anderson of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine told CNN Sunday. “We very much hope that this long pause everyday will allow us to move freely back and forth.”
50,000. That's how many children in Gaza need urgent treatment for malnutrition, the United Nations said Saturday.
Humanitarian workers have increased cries for aid in Gaza over the last several weeks as fighting continues in the southern city of Rafah, where millions of people are sheltering after being displaced by fighting in other parts of Gaza. Israel launched a ground offensive into the heavily populated city in May after officials said they believed it to be home to the last strongholds of Hamas, the militant group that attacked Israel in October, taking hostages and killing 1,200 people. In the time since, Israel has sought to eliminate all Hamas leaders and more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in fighting across Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israeli troops closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing after a rocket attack by Hamas killed three soldiers in early May, but reopened it days later after calls by the United Nations and several foreign governments to allow aid to reach civilians.
Eight Israeli soldiers died on Saturday after the armored vehicle they were in was hit by an explosion. It was the deadliest incident for the Israel Defense Forces since January, the BBC reported. The soldiers were returning from an offensive in Rafah that saw 50 fighters killed.