WORLD Rafah hospitals will run out of fuel in 3 days: WHO
UN officials: No aid entered Gaza, and there is no one to receive on Palestinian side because of ongoing fighting
JERUSALEM: The World Health Organization says it has only three days of fuel for its medical operations in southern Gaza, with shortages already forcing one of three remaining hospitals in the city of Rafah to shut down.
The Rafah border crossing with Egypt has been closed since Israel’s military took control of the Palestinian side early Tuesday, blocking the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid. The UN says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”
Israel said it reopened Kerem Shalom crossing, the other main entry point for aid, on Wednesday. UN officials say no aid has entered Gaza, and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side because of ongoing fighting.
The war in Gaza has driven around 80% of the territory’s population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials. Lebanese village near the border with Israel killed four people. It was not immediately clear if the four killed Thursday in the village of Bafliyeh were members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. Hezbollah started attacking Israeli army posts along the Lebanon-Israel border a day after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7. Since then, more than 350 people have been killed in Lebanon, including 275 Hezbollah members and more than 70 civilians and non-combatants.
Foreign officials have been visiting Lebanon over the past month in attempts to bring calm to the border, but Hezbollah has repeatedly said it will not stop fighting until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir posted “Hamas loves Biden” on X.
Biden said the US was still committed to Israel’s defense and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms, but that if Israel goes into Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used.” There is widespread concern over the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering in Rafah.
An Israeli airstrike on a residential building killed eight people including four children late Wednesday, according to hospital records. The strike hit a residential building in Tel al-Sultan in western Rafah.