As aid deliveries began moving into the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel is stepping up its attacks for the next stage of war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Israel has been continuously bombarding the Gaza Strip since the October 7 attack by Hamas. More than 4,385 people have been killed in the enclave, and over 13,000 have been injured, according to Gaza Health Ministry.
In Israel, more than 1,400 people in Israel have died, mostly in the initial attack by Hamas militants. In addition, 203 people were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, the Israeli military has said.
Still, Israel’s attacks in Gaza have caused much greater damage.
On Saturday, Israel said that Hamas has freed two American hostages who had been held in Gaza since the war began on October 7. US President Joe Biden spoke to them over the phone
However, Israeli airstrikes continued to hit southern Gaza, an area swollen by civilians who fled there from the north on Israeli “evacuation” orders.
“We will deepen our attacks to minimize the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war. We are going to increase the attacks, from today,” Israel’s military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Saturday.
Israel has also launched a rare air strike in the occupied West Bank, the second such attack in the territory since 2006. So far, one death has been reported in the attack.
The war entered the 16th day on Sunday and is the deadliest in the recent history of Palestinian liberation wars. Harrowing visuals of people wounded, children abandoned, and people devastated on being forced to flee their homes have been widely circulated on social media. Hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties, and civilians are facing mounting challenges in accessing essential food supplies and health facilities. Palestinian rights activists have called it a genocidal attempt at ethnic cleansing.
Meanwhile, for the first since the war began between Israel and Hamas, a 20-truck convoy of the Egyptian Red Crescent entered Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with humanitarian supplies.
The United Nations welcomed the aid but noted that it is only a small beginning, still far from enough and reiterated their appeal for an immediate ceasefire.
"I want to express my deep gratitude to Egypt in this regard. But the people of Gaza need a commitment for much, much more – a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday.
Five UN agencies - UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) - said the “first, but limited, shipment of life-saving humanitarian supplies” from the UN and the Egyptian Red Crescent that entered Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, will provide an urgently needed lifeline to some of the hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, cut off from water, food, medicine, fuel and other essentials.
“But it is only a small beginning and far from enough. More than 1.6 million people in Gaza are in critical need of humanitarian aid. Children, pregnant women and the elderly remain the most vulnerable. Nearly half of Gaza’s population are children,” the agencies said.
