Israel to halt daytime fighting along route in southern Gaza for aid flow

Israel's military announced on Sunday that it would pause fighting during daytime hours along a route in southern Gaza to free up a backlog of humanitarian aid deliveries for desperate Palestinians enduring a humanitarian crisis sparked by the war, now in its ninth month.

The tactical pause," which applies to about 12 kilometres of road in the Rafah area, falls far short of a complete cease-fire in the beleaguered territory that has been sought by the international community, including Israel's top ally, the United States.

The limited halt in fighting could help address some of the overwhelming needs of Palestinians that have surged in recent weeks with Israel's incursion into Rafah.

 

The army said the pause would begin at 8 am (0500 GMT) and last until 7 pm (1600 GMT). It said the pauses would be daily until further notice.

The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for aid, and travel safely to the Salah a-Din highway, a main north-south road, the military said.

The crossing has had a bottleneck since Israeli ground troops moved into Rafah in early May.

COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said the route would increase the flow of aid to other parts of Gaza, including Khan Younis, the coastal area of Muwasi and central Gaza. Hard-hit northern Gaza, an early target in the war, is being served by goods entering from a crossing in the north.

The military said the pause Sunday, which begins as Muslims start marking the major Eid Al-Adha holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies.

Following criticism of the move by ultranationalists in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, who oppose a halt in the war, the military said fighting is not being paused in the rest of southern Gaza and there is no change regarding the entry of aid in general.

A UN humanitarian spokesperson, Jens Laerke, told The Associated Press that Israel's announcement was welcome but no aid has been dispatched from Kerem Shalom today," with no details. Laerke said the UN hopes for further concrete measures by Israel including smoother operations at checkpoints and the regular entry of needed fuel.

Israel and Hamas are weighing the latest proposal for a cease-fire, a plan that was detailed by President Joe Biden in the administration's most concentrated diplomatic push for a halt to the fighting and the release of hostages taken by the militant group.

While Biden described the proposal as an Israeli one, Israel has not fully embraced it. Hamas has demanded changes that appear unacceptable to Israel.

The fighting continues unabated. Israel announced the names Sunday of 11 soldiers killed in recent attacks in Gaza. That puts the number of soldiers killed since Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza last year at 308. Hamas killed 1,200 people during its October 7 attack and took 250 hostage, Israeli authorities say. Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Israel's military offensive against Hamas has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting widespread hunger and hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine.

Another crossing, the Rafah terminal between Gaza and Egypt, has been closed since Israel moved into the city. Hamas' supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Sunday called for more pressure to open border crossings into Gaza. Egypt has refused to reopen the Rafah crossing as long as Israel controls the Palestinian side in Gaza.

From May 6 until June 6, the UN received an average of 68 trucks of aid a day, according to figures from the UN humanitarian office. That was down from 168 a day in April and far below the 500 trucks a day that aid groups say are needed.

The flow of aid in southern Gaza declined just as need grew. More than 1 million Palestinians, many of whom had already been displaced, fled Rafah after the invasion, crowding into other parts of southern and central Gaza. Most now languish in tent camps, using trenches as latrines, with open sewage in the streets.

COGAT says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks. It says more than 8,600 trucks of all kinds, both aid and commercial, entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day. But much of that aid has piled up at crossings and not reached its final destination.

A spokesman for COGAT, Shimon Freedman, said it was the UN's fault that its cargo stacked up on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom. He said its agencies have fundamental logistical problems that they have not fixed, especially a lack of trucks.

The UN denies such allegations. It says the fighting between Israel and Hamas often makes it too dangerous for UN trucks inside Gaza to travel to Kerem Shalom. It also says the pace of deliveries has been slowed because the Israeli military must authorise drivers to travel to the site, a system Israel says was designed for the drivers' safety.

Due to a lack of security, aid trucks in some cases have been looted by crowds as they moved along Gaza's roads.

The new arrangement aims to reduce the need for coordinating deliveries by providing an 11-hour uninterrupted window each day for trucks to move in and out of the crossing.

It was not immediately clear whether the army would provide security to protect the aid trucks moving along the highway.