Israeli forces fought with Palestinian groups in Rafah and other parts of southern Gaza despite the Israeli military's announcement on Sunday of tactical pauses in operations to allow in humanitarian aid, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the military's announced plans for daily pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into the besieged Palestinian enclave that has been under relentless Israeli bombardment for more than eight months. .
Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main organization delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, said there had been no pause in the fighting.
“There has been information that such a decision has been made, but the political level says that nothing has been made of this decision,” Lazzarini said at a news conference on Monday.
“So at the moment I can tell you that hostilities continue in Rafah and southern Gaza. And that operationally nothing has changed yet.”
The Israeli military said on Monday that its forces were continuing operations in the Rafah area, which included ground fighting.
Residents said Israeli forces were advancing increasingly toward the central and western areas of Rafah. Hamas forces were fighting at close range inside the Shaboura camp in the heart of Rafah, according to the group's armed wing and residents, who reported hearing sounds of explosions and incessant gunfire.
The Israeli army had announced at the weekend daily pauses from 05:00 GMT to 16:00 GMT in the area from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, to the Salah al-Din road and then northwards .
It later clarified that operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its ongoing attack on southern Gaza.
International humanitarian officials have repeatedly said that Israeli inspections, ongoing fighting and looting by desperate residents have impeded aid deliveries. Israeli ground troops have been operating in the southern city of Rafah since early May. They have since closed the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Before the Rafah ground operation, there was already an inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the number of trucks entering the southern Gaza Strip numbered in the hundreds, insufficient to meet the daily needs of the population of the enclave of 2 ,3 millions.
'Hell on earth'
“As we have reiterated, humanitarian operations in Gaza must be fully facilitated and all impediments removed,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told The Associated Press on Monday. “We need to be able to deliver aid safely throughout Gaza.”
With the Israeli attack on Gaza in its ninth month, Haq said, displaced Palestinians in the territory urgently need food, water, sanitation, shelter and medical care, “and many live near piles of solid waste, increasing the risks for health”.
He said Israel needs to ensure that the movement of aid convoys and personnel through checkpoints is expedited, that all roads are operational and that fuel – which is critically scarce – enters Gaza regularly. .
Meanwhile, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in an op-ed in The New York Times that the impoverished, blockaded Gaza Strip has become “hell on earth” as famine looms. .
He said humanitarian aid is obstructed and politicized as hunger and disease spread, “and aid workers, health workers and journalists have suffered unacceptable losses.”
Echoing his comments, the Gaza Government Media Office accused Israel and the United States of “intentionally” worsening famine-like conditions in Gaza by “withholding humanitarian aid as a tool of political pressure.”
In a statement on Monday, the media office accused Israel and the US administration of “deliberately aggravating the humanitarian situation” in Gaza to achieve political objectives.
Separately, on Monday, Norway said it would increase its funding to UNRWA by 100 million crowns ($9.3 million).
UNRWA was plunged into crisis in January, when Israel accused a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
The allegations led several countries, including the largest donor, the United States, to suspend funding to the agency, although many have since resumed payments.
“UNRWA is the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza,” Norwegian International Development Minister Anne Beathe Tvinnereim said in a statement.
“The war, accusations made by Israel, continued attacks on the organization and funds withheld by major donors have put UNRWA in an extremely difficult financial situation,” he said.
An independent review of UNRWA, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, found some “issues related to neutrality” but said Israel had yet to provide evidence for its main allegations.
