JERUSALEM: Israel will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, an official said Saturday, a day after Gaza City was declared a combat zone.
The decision was likely to bring more condemnation of Israel’s government as frustration grows in the country and abroad over dire conditions for both Palestinians and remaining hostages in Gaza after nearly 23 months of war.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.
Israel on Friday ended daytime pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery, describing Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold and alleging that a tunnel network remains in use. The United Nations and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other recent measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.
“We left because the area became unlivable,” Fadi Al-Daour, displaced from Gaza City, said as vehicles piled high with people and belongings rolled through a shattered landscape. “No one is searching, and there are no journalists to film. There is nothing.”
Remains of another hostage are identified
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s office announced that the remains of a hostage that Israel on Friday said had been recovered in Gaza were of Idan Shtivi. He was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war.
Forty-eight hostages now remain in Gaza of the over 250 seized. Israel has believed 20 are still alive.
Their loved ones fear the expanding military offensive will put them in even more danger, and they rallied again Saturday to demand a ceasefire deal to bring everyone home.
“Netanyahu, if another living hostage comes back in a bag, it will not only be the hostages and their families who pay the price. You will bear responsibility for premeditated murder,” Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of hostage Avraham Munder, said in Tel Aviv.
A ‘massive population movement’ coming
In recent days, Israel’s military has increased strikes on the outskirts of Gaza City, where famine was recently documented and declared by global food security experts.
By Saturday there had been no airdrops for several days across Gaza, a break from almost daily ones. Israel’s army didn’t respond to a request for comment or say how it would provide aid to Palestinians during another major shift in Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
“Such an evacuation would trigger a massive population movement that no area in the Gaza Strip can absorb, given the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care,” Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.
It’s impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City can be done in a safe and dignified way, she said.
Killed while seeking food
AP video footage showed several large explosions across Gaza overnight. Israel’s military Saturday evening said it had struck a key Hamas member in the area of Gaza City, with no details.
An Israeli strike on a bakery in Gaza City’s Nasr neighborhood killed 12 people including six women and three children, the Shifa Hospital director told the AP, and a strike on the Rimal neighborhood killed seven.
Hamas in a statement called the strike on a residential building in Rimal a “brutal escalation against civilians.”
Israeli gunfire killed four people trying to get aid in central Gaza, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital, where the bodies were taken.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 10 people died as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including three children. It said at least 332 Palestinians have died from malnutrition-related causes during the war, including 124 children.
At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, said the ministry, which does not say how many are fighters or civilians but says around half have been women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.