The ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas stretched into a fifth day on Thursday, January 23. Humanitarian aid groups are working to surge food and supplies to the war-ravaged territory as Palestinians scour through mountains of rubble looking for bodies of those killed by Israeli bombardments during the 15-month war. More than 120 corpses were recovered and brought to hospitals across the Gaza Strip over the past day, the Health Ministry said.
Israeli tank shelling also killed two Palestinian brothers near their home in southern Gaza, the Health Ministry added. Israel's military said troops fired on armed Palestinians that posed a threat.
In the days since the fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. Israeli soldiers and vehicles were fanned out in the muddy streets Thursday as displaced Palestinian families left the area - some carrying suitcases, pets and other belongings. Israel says it's seeking to stamp out militancy in the area. The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 10 people have been killed in Jenin.
'A generation has been traumatized'
The war in Gaza has seen children killed, starved, frozen to death, orphaned and separated from their families, the UN humanitarian chief says.
"A generation has been traumatized," Tom Fletcher told a UN Security Council meeting called by Russia on Thursday about the war's impact on Gaza's youngest residents. "Conservative estimates indicate that over 17,000 children are without their families in Gaza."
In his video briefing from Stockholm, Fletcher did not give any figures on the number of children killed. But he said, "Some died before their first breath – perishing with their mothers in childbirth."
An estimated 150,000 pregnant women and new mothers are also "in desperate need of health services," Fletcher said, sharing that a million kids in Gaza need mental health and psycho-social support for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, according to the UN children's agency, UNICEF.
Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between combatants and civilians, says over 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them women and children. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas, saying militants operate in residential areas.
UN says aid is now getting to hard-to-reach areas in Gaza
Large volumes of aid are entering Gaza and getting to areas that were hard to reach before the ceasefire, the UN humanitarian office reported Thursday.
"The surge in supplies entering Gaza each day and the return of law and order has allowed aid organizations to significantly scale up the delivery of life-saving assistance and services," the UN said.
At least 653 aid trucks entered Gaza on Thursday, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA. All of the aid is entering Gaza via crossings from Israel, OCHA said, as the direct Egypt-Gaza crossing remains closed under Israeli forces' control. The aid itself is supplied by the UN, nongovernmental organizations, other countries and the private sector. Seven trucks of fuel were delivered to northern Gaza by UN humanitarian partners for the first time since the ceasefire, OCHA said.
"This included 23,000 liters of fuel delivered to 20 health facilities in Gaza City - enough to keep them up and running for about a week," it said.
Fuel deliveries in central and southern Gaza are keeping water wells, desalination plants and sewage pumps running, OCHA said, and UN partners in those areas have resumed monthly food distributions with full rations. Since the ceasefire, OCHA said most trucks entering Gaza carried food, but more medicine, shelter materials, water and sanitation supplies are expected in the coming days.
A potential Netanyahu and Trump meeting in Washington
On Wednesday, organizations in Gaza transported 118 trucks of food parcels and flour from UN warehouses to more than 60 distribution points in the south. Across southern Gaza, the UN children's agency UNICEF is giving out high-energy biscuits and ready-to-use food - enough for thousands of infants.
Also Wednesday, UN partners in southern Gaza distributed medical items and kits for trauma management kits to 14 hospitals, as well as sexual and reproductive health kits to 28 health facilities – enough for 58,000 people.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump "in a few weeks."
Danny Danon told reporters Wednesday: "I'm sure he would be one of the first foreign leaders invited to the White House." Danon said he expects their discussions to include the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel.