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 fighters, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.
Gaza’s civil defence 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 neighbourhoods” 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.
“Tonnes 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.
Hamas-led fighters 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.