Israel rejected on Saturday a group of global food security experts’ warning of famine in parts of northern Gaza, where it is waging war against Palestinian terror group Hamas, as the military said it had let aid trucks in areas cut off by fighting.
“Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-run civil defense agency reported 14 killed in Israeli strikes on a Khan Younis tent camp and a Gaza City school that the army said was used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.
The independent Famine Review Committee said on Friday in a rare alert that there was a “strong likelihood” of imminent famine in parts of north Gaza with immediate action required from the warring parties to ease a catastrophic situation.
Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday.
In the last two months, 39,000 trucks carrying more than 840,000 tons of food have entered Gaza, it said, and meetings were taking place daily with the UN which had 700 trucks of aid awaiting pickup and distribution. Officials said that since the beginning of October, 713 aid trucks had entered northern Gaza via the Erez West Crossing.
With some critics alleging starvation tactics in north Gaza, Israel’s main ally the US has set a deadline within days for it to improve the humanitarian situation or face potential restrictions on military cooperation.
On Saturday, the IDF said it had delivered 11 humanitarian aid trucks to Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. The aid delivery was the first to reach the Strip’s north since Israel launched renewed operations in the area a month ago after Hamas forces regrouped there. Additional aid is entering other areas of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, it said.
Israel has also committed to opening a new border crossing with the Strip’s center at Kissufim for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Washington warned Jerusalem a month ago that Israel could face restrictions on US military aid if it failed to improve aid deliveries across Gaza by November 13. While Israel has taken some steps to meet these demands, US officials have stressed that more needs to be done.
Several hundred people are estimated to remain in Jabalia, and a few thousand more in other towns in the area.
The army said it has been working to evacuate the civilian population from towns north of Gaza City in order to operate against Hamas there without harming innocents. On Saturday, the IDF said troops had killed “dozens of terrorists” in Jabalia over the past day, as well as several gunmen in the southern city of Rafah, as strikes targeted military infrastructure across the Strip.
Gaza’s Hamas-led civil defense agency said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight.
Spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that a strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Younis, killing at least nine people, including children and women.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital. According to the hospital, the dead included two women and a child.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the blast.
Bassal said a second strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah School,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, in the Strip’s north. The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said that among the dead were two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child.
The army said the strike targeted Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operatives operating at the scene, but did not give further detail.
The IDF has accused Hamas of embedding itself in civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and mosques. The army said its strikes are based on intelligence of terrorist activity and that multiple steps are taken to minimize civilian casualties.
The war in Gaza was sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far. The toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
The United Nations said Friday that nearly 70 percent of the fatalities it had verified in the war were women and children, condemning what it alleged was a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
The tally by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues. At 8,119, the tally is at this stage much lower than the figure cited by Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva said it categorically rejected the report.
“Once again, OHCHR fails to accurately reflect the realities on the ground, and disregards the extensive role of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in deliberately causing civilian harm in Gaza,” it said.