Gaza City, Palestinian Territories — Israel said Monday it will “take control” of the whole of Gaza, where rescuers reported more than 50 killed in Israeli strikes as the military pressed a newly intensified campaign.
After more than two months of a total blockade, the World Health Organization issued a stark warning on the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip, saying “two million people are starving”.
Under mounting pressure to lift the blockade it imposed on Gaza on March 2, Israel has announced it would let limited aid into the besieged territory and said a first delivery of “trucks with baby food” would enter Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited “practical and diplomatic reasons” for the resumption, while the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said it had been approached by Israeli authorities about the resumption of aid.
In southern Gaza, the Israeli military issued an evacuation call to Palestinians in and around Khan Yunis city ahead of what it described as an “unprecedented attack”.
The call came after the military announced it had begun “extensive ground operations” in an expanded offensive against Hamas militants, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 52 people had been killed in Israeli attacks on Monday across the territory.
Netanyahu, in a video posted on Telegram, said that “the fighting is intense and we are making progress.”
“We will take control of all the territory of the strip,” the Israeli leader added.
The UN’s OHCHR rights office decried actions that are “in defiance of international law and tantamount to ethnic cleansing”, citing the latest attacks, displacement, the “methodical destruction of entire neighborhoods” and denial of humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu on Monday said that Israel “will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped”, justifying to his hardline supporters the decision to resume aid.
“We must not let the population (of Gaza) sink into famine, both for practical and diplomatic reasons,” Netanyahu said, adding that even supporters of Israel would not tolerate “images of mass starvation”.
Famine risk –
Israel said its blockade was aimed at forcing concessions from Hamas, while UN agencies have warned of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.
“Tons of food is blocked at the border, just minutes away”, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
“The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.”
The Israeli foreign ministry said that “trucks with baby food” would enter Gaza on Monday, and that “in the coming days, Israel will facilitate the entry of dozens of aid trucks”.
Last week US President Donald Trump acknowledged that “a lot of people are starving”, adding “we’re going to get that taken care of”.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir argued against any resumption of aid, saying on X that “our hostages receive no humanitarian aid”.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also of the far right, defended the decision, stressing no supplies would be allowed to reach Hamas.
“This will allow civilians to eat and our friends in the world to keep giving us diplomatic protection,” he said.
Israel’s military said on Monday it had struck “160 terror targets” in Gaza over the past day.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said troops aim to “encircle” some areas, “get the civilian population out of the way, and then fight Hamas”.
‘Like apocalypse’ –
Khan Yunis resident Mohammed Sarhan told AFP that Gaza’s main southern city “felt like the apocalypse” on Monday.
“There was gunfire coming from every apartment, fire belts, F-16 warplanes and helicopters firing,” he said.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee earlier called on Gazans in the city and nearby areas to “evacuate immediately”.
“From this moment, Khan Yunis will be considered a dangerous combat zone,” he said on social media.
AFPTV footage showed a helicopter over the city, while at Nasser Hospital, a young boy in a tracksuit was being treated as two other boys, both barefoot and bleeding, sat on the floor.
Further north in Deir el-Balah, Ayman Badwan mourned the loss of his brother in an attack.
“We are exhausted and drained — we can’t take it anymore,” he told AFP.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the military says are dead.
Gaza’s health ministry said Monday at least 3,340 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,486.
WHO chief says 2 million ‘starving’ in Gaza
Two million people are “starving” in the Gaza Strip, with the deliberate blocking of aid driving up the risk of famine, the World Health Organization chief warned Monday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO and other UN agencies stood ready to deliver aid into the Palestinian territory — if and when it is allowed to enter.
“Two months into the latest blockade, two million people are starving,” Tedros said, while 160,000 metric tons of food “is blocked at the border just minutes away”.
“The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, including food, in the ongoing blockade.”
Speaking at the opening of the annual World Health Assembly, Tedros said that increasing hostilities, evacuation orders, shrinking humanitarian space and the Gaza aid blockade were “driving an influx of casualties to a health system that is already on its knees”.
“People are dying from preventable diseases as medicines wait at the border, while attacks on hospitals deny people care, and deter them from seeking it,” he said.
Tedros said that since November 2023, the WHO had supported medical evacuations of more than 7,300 patients, including 617 cancer patients, from the Gaza Strip.
However, more than 10,000 patients still needed medical evacuation out of Gaza, he added.
“We ask member states to accept more patients, and we ask Israel to allow these evacuations, and to allow urgently-needed food and medicine to enter,” said Tedros.
“WHO stands ready, with our UN partners, to move rapidly to deliver it if and when it is allowed to enter.
“I hope peace will prevail that can transcend generations. War is not the solution.”
