DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Sunday it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted recent convoys. It blamed the breakdown of law and order in large part on Israeli policies.
The decision could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the cold, rainy winter sets in, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in squalid tent camps and reliant on international food aid. Experts were already warning of famine in the territory’s north, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main aid provider in Gaza, said the route leading to the Kerem Shalom crossing is too dangerous on the Gaza side. Armed men looted nearly 100 trucks traveling on the route in mid-November, and he said gangs stole a smaller shipment on Saturday.
Kerem Shalom is the only crossing between Israel and Gaza that is designed for cargo shipments and has been the main artery for aid deliveries since the Rafah crossing with Egypt was shut down in May. Last month, nearly two-thirds of all aid entering Gaza came through Kerem Shalom, and in previous months it accounted for an even larger amount, according to Israeli figures.
In a post on X, Lazzarini largely blamed Israel for the breakdown of humanitarian operations in Gaza, citing “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid,” lack of safety on aid routes and Israel’s targeting of the Hamas-run police force, which had previously provided public security.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the decision.
Israel says it allows enough aid into Gaza and blames UNRWA and other agencies for failing to deliver it. It accuses UNRWA of having allowed Hamas to infiltrate its ranks - allegations denied by the U.N. agency - and passed legislation to sever ties with it last month.
Israeli strikes in Gaza, meanwhile, killed at least six people overnight, including two young children, ages 6 and 8, in the tent where their family was sheltering, medical officials said Sunday.
The strike in the Muwasi area, a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, also wounded the children’s mother and their 8-month-old sister, according to nearby Nasser Hospital. An Associated Press reporter at the hospital saw the bodies.
A separate strike in the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, killed four men, according to hospital records.
The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in either location. Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its daily strikes across Gaza often kill women and children.
In a separate development, a projectile fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen set off air raid sirens in central Israel. The Israeli military said it intercepted the projectile before it entered Israeli territory. The Houthis said they fired a ballistic missile at the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
A former top Israeli general and defense minister has accused the government of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been waging the latest in a series of offensives against Hamas since early October.
The army has sealed off the northern towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, and the Jabaliya refugee camp, and allowed almost no humanitarian aid to enter. Tens of thousands of people have fled, while the United Nations estimates up to 75,000 remain.
Moshe Yaalon, who served as defense minister under Benjamin Netanyahu before quitting in 2016 and becoming a fierce critic of the prime minister, said the current far-right government is determined to “occupy, to annex, to ethnically cleanse.”
Pressed by an interviewer with a local news outlet on Saturday, he said: “There is no Beit Lahiya. No Beit Hanoun. (They are) operating now in Jabaliya, and (they) are actually cleaning the territory of Arabs.”
Yaalon doubled down on the remarks Sunday in an interview with Israeli radio, saying “war crimes are being committed here.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party criticized his earlier remarks, accusing him of making “false statements” that are “a prize for the International Criminal Court and the camp of Israel haters.”
The ICC has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu, another former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas commander, accusing them of crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice is investigating allegations of genocide against Israel.
Israel rejects the allegations and says both courts are biased against it.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around people 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are still being held inside Gaza, around two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,429 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Israel reached a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants last week that has largely held, but that agreement, brokered by the United States and France, did not address the ongoing war in Gaza. Iran - which supports Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and armed groups in Syria and Iraq - has exchanged fire with Israel twice this year.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent much of the past year trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages, but those efforts stalled as Israel rejected Hamas’ demand for a complete withdrawal from the territory. The Biden administration has said it will make another push for a deal in its final weeks in office.
“There are negotiations taking place behind the scenes, and it can be done,” Israel’s mostly ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, said Sunday. He spoke after meeting with Yael Alexander, whose son, Israeli-American Edan Alexander, is being held by Hamas and appeared in a recent video released by the militants.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the wars in the Middle East, without saying how. He was a staunch defender of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians during his previous term.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel.
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