LIVE | Israel-Hamas War Day 24: Gaza gets largest aid shipment; deaths top 8,000
Humanitarian workers say assistance still desperately short of needs after thousands of people break into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products
Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza on Sunday (October 29) in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians crossed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war ignited by Hamas’s brutal October 7 incursion.
The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack.
Communications were restored to much of Gaza early on Sunday after an Israeli bombardment described by residents as the most intense of the war knocked out most contact late Friday. The besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people were largely cut off from the world.
Israel has allowed only a small trickle of aid to enter. On Sunday, 33 trucks of aid entered the only border crossing from Egypt, a spokesperson at the Rafah crossing, Wael Abo Omar, told The Associated Press.
After visiting the Rafah crossing, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court called the suffering of civilians “profound" and said he had not been able to enter Gaza.
Karim Khan called on Israel to respect international law but stopped short of accusing it of war crimes. He called Hamas' Oct 7 attack a serious violation of international humanitarian law. “The burden rests with those who aim the gun, missile or rocket in question,” he said.
“These are the most tragic of days,” Khan added.
The court investigates and prosecutes people for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. It has been investigating the actions of Israeli and Palestinian authorities since 2014.
The Israeli military said Sunday it had struck over 450 militant targets over the past 24 hours, including Hamas command centres and anti-tank missile launching positions. It said ground forces killed a number of Hamas militants as they exited one of their extensive network of Gaza tunnels near the Erez crossing, which was the sole pedestrian passageway into Israel before it was destroyed in the fighting.
The Hamas military wing said its militants clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest Gaza Strip with small arms and anti-tank missiles. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel.
(With agency inputs)
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British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, on Monday said that the UK was working with Egypt and Israel to get humanitarian pause to help the beleaguered residents of Gaza with aid.
“We’re working extensively with the Egyptians, with the Israelis and others to try and have a humanitarian pause, a temporary pause so that we can get that humanitarian aid to the people that need it,” Reuters quoted him as saying in Abu Dhabi.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has claimed that one of its aircraft has struck a Hamas post and killed over 20 militants in an overnight ground offensive in Gaza.
“Soldiers spotted armed terrorists and an anti-tank missile launching post near the Al-Azhar University and guided an IAF fighter jet to strike them,” the IDF posted on X.
The post said the IDF “eliminated multiple terrorists barricaded within civilian buildings and terrorist tunnels who attempted to attack the forces.”
The IDF also claimed that it has attacked over 600 targets over the past 24 hours including those on the premises of the Al-Azhar University from where it said an anti-tank missile was about to be launched.
Israeli troops and armour pushed deeper into the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, reaching built-up areas as the UN and medical staff warned that airstrikes are hitting closer to hospitals, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.
Video released Monday by the Israeli military showed armoured vehicles moving among buildings and soldiers taking positions inside a house. The exact location was not known, but military footage Saturday had shown troops moving through empty sandy areas near Gaza’s northern border fence.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians crossed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war ignited by Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 incursion.
The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. (AP)Crowded hospitals in northern Gaza are under growing threat. The UN said on Monday that strikes hit near Gaza City’s Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza in recent days.
All 10 hospitals still working in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders in recent days, the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said. Along with thousands of patients and staff, around 117,000 displaced people are staying in these facilities, it said.
Residents reported strikes near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, where tens of thousands of civilians are sheltering.
Israel accuses Hamas of having a secret command post beneath the hospital but has not provided much evidence. Hamas denies the allegations.
Strikes hit within 50 metres (yards) of Al-Quds Hospital after it received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said. Some windows were blown out, and rooms were covered in debris. It said 14,000 people are sheltering there.
Israel ordered Al-Quds Hospital to evacuate more than a week ago, but it and other medical facilities have refused, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.
“Under no circumstances, hospitals should be bombed,” the director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Robert Mardini, told CBS’s Face the Nation. About 20,000 people were sheltering at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, emergency director Dr Mohammed Qandeel said.
“I brought my kids to sleep here,” said one displaced resident who gave her name only as Umm Ahmad. “I used to be afraid of my kids playing in the sand. Now their hands are dirty with the blood on the floor.” An Israeli airstrike hit a two-story house in Khan Younis on Sunday, killing at least 13 people, including 10 from one family. The bodies were brought to Nasser Hospital, according to an AP journalist at the scene. (With AP inputs)Thousands of supporters of religious party Jamat-e-Islami take part in a rally against the Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinian people, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Sunday (Octoer 29) | AP/PTI