The Israeli forces continued to beat the besieged Gaza Strip, killing at least 78 Palestinians, including several aid seekers, while the ceasefire of ceasefies in a stand deepens a fuel and a hunger crisis.
An Israeli attack near an aid distribution point in Rafah in southern Gaza killed at least five people who asked for help on Monday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The killings have passed the number of deaths of the Palestinians killed near the aid sites led by the Israeli controversial humanitarian foundation and supported by the United States (GHF) at 838, according to WAFA.
In Khan Younis, also in the south of Gaza, an Israeli strike on a travel camp killed nine people and injured many others. In Bureij de Central Gaza refugee camp, four people were killed when an Israeli air strike hit a shopping center, Wafa said.
Israeli forces have also resumed attacks in northern Gaza and Gaza City. The Israeli media reported an ambush in Gaza City, with a reservoir struck by Rocket Fire and later, with light weapons. A helicopter was seen evacuating victims. The Israeli army later confirmed that three soldiers had been killed in the incident.
Tareq Abu Azzoum of Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Deir El-Balah, said that Israeli forces responded with “massive air strikes near the () districts of Tuffah and Shujayea, leveling residential buildings”.
The WAFA news agency said that at least 24 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza City and that dozens of others had been injured.
The attacks are involved as the United Nations agencies continue to plead so that more aid is authorized in Gaza, where famine is looming and a serious shortage of fuel has put the health sector already beaten on its knees.
The Gaza water crisis has also intensified since Israel blocked almost all fuel expeditions in the enclave on March 2. Without fuel, desalination plants, wastewater treatment facilities and pumping stations have largely closed.
The Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs said on Monday that the Gaza aid flow did not increase despite an agreement last week between Israel and the European Union which should have had this result.
“Nothing has changed (on the field),” Badr Abdelatty told journalists before the EU-Middle East meeting in Brussels.
‘A real disaster’
The best EU diplomat said on Thursday that the block and Israel had agreed to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, in particular by increasing the number of aid trucks and by opening up passage and aid routes.
When asked to him what measures that Israel had taken, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar referred to an understanding of the EU but did not provide details on the implementation.
When asked if there had been improvements after the agreement, the Jordanian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi told journalists that the situation in Gaza remains “catastrophic”.
“There is a real disaster that occurs in Gaza resulting from the continuation of the Israeli seat,” he said.
Meanwhile, ceasefire talks of stuttering entered the second week on Monday, with mediators seeking to fill the gap between Israel and Hamas.
Indirect negotiations in Qatar always seem to be deadlocked after the two parties blamed the other for blocked an agreement for the release of captives and a 60-day ceasefire.
An official who knows talks said they were “underway” in Doha on Monday, AFP news agency reported.
“Discussions are currently focused on the maps offered for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza,” said the source.
“The mediators actively explore innovative mechanisms to fill the remaining gaps and maintain the momentum in the negotiations,” added the source under the cover of anonymity.
Hamas has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who says he wants to see the Palestinian group destroyed, of being the main obstacle.
“Netanyahu is qualified to sabotage a series of negotiations after the other, and is not willing to achieve any agreement,” wrote the group on Telegram.
Netanyahu undergoes increasing pressure to put an end to the war, the military victims rising and the assembly of public frustration.
It also faces the reaction on the feasibility and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from zero on the ruins of the Rafah in the south of Gaza to house 600,000 Palestinians if and when a ceasefire settles.
The Israel security establishment would be unhappy with the plan, that the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the plans for a “concentration camp”.
