Drownings amid aid drop
TWELVE people drowned trying to reach aid dropped by plane off a Gaza beach, Palestinian health authorities said yesterday, amid growing fears of famine nearly six months into Israel’s military campaign.
Video of the air drop showed crowds of people running towards the beach in Beit Lahia in north Gaza, as crates with parachutes floated down, then people standing deep in water and bodies being pulled onto the sand.
It is the latest in a string of incidents involving deaths during aid deliveries in the tiny, crowded Palestinian enclave where some people are foraging for weeds to eat and baking barely edible bread from animal feed.
The video showed the apparently lifeless body of a bearded young man being hauled onto the beach, the eyes open but unmoving, and another man trying to revive him with chest compressions as somebody said, “It’s over”.
“He swam to get food for his children and he was martyred,” said a man standing on the beach. “They should deliver aid through the (overland) crossings.”
Aid agencies say only about a fifth of required supplies are entering Gaza as Israel ploughs on with an air and ground offensive. They say deliveries by air or sea directly onto Hamas-run Gaza’s beaches are no substitute for increased supplies coming in by land via Israel or Egypt. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged Israel to give an “ironclad commitment” for unfettered aid access into the Gaza Strip and described the number of trucks blocked at the border as “a moral outrage”.
Israel says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians within the enclave on UN agencies, which it says are inefficient.
Distribution of aid inside Gaza has been complicated, particularly in the north, and last month health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli troops killed more than 100 people trying to take aid from a convoy.
Meanwhile, a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has not had an immediate impact on ceasefire talks in Doha, mediator Qatar said yesterday.
The resolution demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas, as well as the release of hostages. The US abstained from the vote, angering ally Israel which had wanted Washington to veto it. The remaining 14 council members voted in favour.
“We haven’t seen any immediate effect on the talks, they are ongoing as they were before, as the (UN) decision was taking place,” Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said in Doha yesterday.
A source briefed on the talks earlier said that a delegation from Israel’s Mossad spy agency, which had arrived in Qatar more than a week ago, was still engaging in discussions. A small Mossad team was returning to Israel from Doha for consultations on developments, the source added.
For weeks the sides have been discussing a potential truce of around 42 days during which around 40 Israeli hostages would be released in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel says it is willing to consider only a temporary pause in fighting; Hamas wants any deal to lead to an end to the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said yesterday Hamas had made “delusional” demands, which it said showed the Palestinians were not interested in a deal. Hamas has accused Israel of stalling at the talks while it carries out its military offensive.
The discussions, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, are continuing as a humanitarian crisis devastates Palestinians in Gaza with severe shortages of food, medicine and hospital care. Concerns are growing that famine will take hold.
The war was triggered when Hamas burst into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, killed 1 200 people and took 253 hostages into the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. Israeli retaliated by pounding Gaza in a military offensive which has killed more than 32 000 Palestinians, according to Gaza Health authorities.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu faced growing strains on his divided coalition after an angry stand-off with Washington worsened disagreements over proposals to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military. A cabinet meeting to discuss the planned changes to the conscription law was called off, with only days left before the government had to present proposals to the Supreme Court.
Amid growing international pressure for a halt to the fighting and a stop to Israeli plans to launch a ground assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled visit to Washington by two of his most senior aides who were due to hear US ideas about operational alternatives. The open show of defiance towards Israel’s strongest ally was welcomed by his religious-nationalist coalition partners but implicitly criticised by centrist former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who joined the war cabinet last year and who said the delegation should go to Washington.
Surveys indicate the Israeli public largely supports the government’s determination to dismantle Hamas as a military force in Gaza. Netanyahu’s position remains dependent on holding together his coalition with hard-right religious nationalist parties that are opposed to any let-up in the war or any concession to international demands for a broad-based political settlement with the Palestinians.
But the conscription law, which could potentially remove exemptions keeping ultra-Orthodox Jews from serving in the military, is shaping up as a significant obstacle, highlighting a long-standing divide between secular and religious Israelis. The proposals have sharpened divisions between allies of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who has been pushing for a widening of conscription laws, and the ultraOrthodox parties in the coalition who want the exemptions to remain.