GAZA: Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts Wednesday to rush food to war-torn Gaza by land, air and sea after the EU top diplomat said starvation had become "a weapon of war".
The war raging since October 7 has caused mass civilian deaths, reduced vast areas to a rubble-strewn wasteland and sparked warnings of looming famine in the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.
A Spanish charity vessel, the Open Arms, was on its way to Gaza from Cyprus, where it had set sail early Tuesday towing a barge with 200 tonnes of aid, in a first voyage meant to open a maritime corridor. The flow of aid trucks from Egypt into Gaza has slowed recently -- a trend variously blamed on Israel and its security checks of cargo, and on civil unrest in Gaza where desperate crowds have looted aid shipments.
About half a dozen Arab and western nations have airdropped food parcels on parachutes into Gaza, and Morocco has sent a planeload of relief supplies via Israel's Ben Gurion airport.
The UN World Food Programme, trying an alternative land route from southern Israel, sent an initial six aid trucks into worst-hit northern Gaza, through a gate in the security fence, the Israeli army said. The WFP said it had "delivered enough food for 25,000 people" and demanded that, "with people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day. We need entry points directly into the north."
The European Union's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that the humanitarian crisis "is man-made".
"If we look at alternative ways to provide support, it's because the land crossings have been artificially closed," he said, charging that "starvation is being used as a weapon of war".
Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive have killed 31,272 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children.
At least 88 people were killed over the past 24 hours, it said, adding that "dozens of missing persons are still under the rubble".
The Israeli army said its troops were "intensifying operations" in the southern Gaza Strip, including the biggest city there, Khan Yunis.
Gaza's dire food shortages after more than five months of war and siege have killed 27 people through malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
As aid agencies warn the truck deliveries and airdrops fall far short of meeting the desperate need, European nations and the United States have announced plans to send more relief goods by sea. — AFP
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