JEDDAH: A gang of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank attacked two humanitarian aid convoys on Wednesday traveling from Jordan to Gaza, the Jordanian government said.
Israel earlier reopened the sole crossing on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, allowing aid trucks to pass through the Erez checkpoint following US demands to do more to address the growing humanitarian crisis.
One convoy of 31 trucks was on its way to the Erez crossing into north Gaza and the other, with 48 trucks, was headed for the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza. They were carrying food, flour and other aid.
“Two Jordanian aid convoys carrying food, flour and other humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip were attacked by settlers,” the ministry said, without giving details of what happened.
Both convoys managed to continue on their journey and reach their destination in war-devastated Gaza, the ministry added in a statement. Such a route to the Gaza Strip would have taken them through the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel.
Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, said police had arrested four settlers who blocked the aid trucks as the convoys passed near the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, and the trucks continued to their destinations.
The Jordanian government condemned the attack and said it held Israeli authorities fully responsible for ensuring the protection of aid convoys and international agencies.
Jordan has been air-dropping aid and sending convoys westward overland to Palestinians in Gaza throughout the war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7.
Reopening the Erez crossing has been one of the main pleas of international aid agencies for months, to alleviate hunger which is believed to be most severe among the hundreds of thousands of civilians in the enclave’s northern sector.
In Israel on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enable the delivery of more aid into Gaza. Israel is the final stop on the top US diplomat’s Middle East tour, his seventh visit to the region.
Blinken toured a compound at the Kerem Shalom crossing where aid trucks bound for Gaza are held for inspection, and visited Ashdod port in the south, which has recently started receiving aid for Gaza.
Earlier, in more than two hours of talks with Netanyahu, Blinken noted “the improvement in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza since the call between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu on April 4 and reiterated the importance of accelerating and sustaining that improvement,” the State Department said.
Blinken said Israel needed do more on aid, by establishing a deconfliction mechanism with humanitarian agencies and making sure there were enough drivers and trucks in Gaza to deliver aid where it was needed.
He said a clear list of humanitarian items was also needed to make sure aid shipments were not arbitrarily denied entry into Gaza by Israel’s inspections, a process that aid groups have complained has been a major bottleneck.
While the focus of Blinken’s visit was on getting more aid to Palestinians in Gaza, Washington has also warned Israel not to go ahead with a planned assault on the southern city of Rafah.
Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel would carry out an operation against Hamas in Rafah regardless of whether a ceasefire and hostage release deal were reached.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said Israeli improvements to aid access in Gaza “cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah.”
(With Agencies)
