©Reuters. Crew members and port staff inspect the cargo ship loaded with humanitarian aid for Gaza in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, March 16, 2024. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
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By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Truckloads of flour have reached northern Gaza for distribution in areas that have not received aid for four months, Palestinian media said on Sunday, with famine looming in the enclave and truce talks between Israel and Hamas which should resume in Qatar.
A convoy of 12 trucks arrived in the north on Saturday – six in Gaza City and six in Jabalia refugee camp – carrying supplies to also be distributed to the northernmost areas of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, media and residents said.
Hamas Home Front-linked media reported that the aid was distributed by the “Popular Committees,” a group that includes leaders of powerful Gaza clans. A Hamas source said the route was secured by Hamas security personnel.
Aid agencies have warned that pockets of Gaza are already facing famine, with hospitals in the north reporting children dying of malnutrition and dehydration.
The hunger crisis has piled international pressure on Israel more than five months into its land and air campaign in Gaza, triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack, with further ceasefire talks and hostage exchanges expected in the coming months. days.
By Israeli counts, Hamas killed around 1,200 people in its attack and seized 253 hostages. According to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 31,500 Palestinians.
An Israeli attack overnight killed 12 people in a house in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the small and crowded Gaza Strip, the Health Ministry said, among 92 people it said had been killed in the previous 24 hours .
Israel’s stated war aim is to wipe out Hamas, and it has said this can only be achieved with an assault on Rafah on the border with Egypt, the last relatively safe place for civilians who have flocked to camps there from other parts of Gaza.
Israel’s Western allies, however, have warned Israel against attacking Rafah unless it can protect civilians. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Friday that it had approved plans for an assault.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday after talks with Jordanian King Abdullah in Jordan that the large number of civilian casualties that would result from such an assault would make peace in the region “very difficult.”
QATAR SPEAKS
A source close to the truce talks in Qatar told Reuters that the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency would join the delegation attending the negotiations with mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States and was expected in Doha on Sunday.
Last week Hamas presented a new ceasefire proposal that included an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli security cabinet will meet to discuss it before the delegation’s departure.
Netanyahu has previously said the proposal was based on “unrealistic demands,” but a Palestinian official familiar with the mediation efforts said the chances of a deal looked better if Hamas had provided more details on the proposed prisoner swap.
“The mediators felt positive about Hamas’s new proposal. Some in Israel believe the group has made some improvements from its previous position and now it is up to Netanyahu alone to say whether a deal is imminent,” said the official, who he didn’t ask anything. be nominated.