Fighting in Gaza continues despite Israeli ‘pause’ announcement: UNRWA | Israel-Palestine conflict news

Israeli forces fought with Palestinian groups in Rafah and other parts of southern Gaza despite the Israeli military’s announcement on Sunday of tactical pauses in operations to allow humanitarian aid to enter, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized plans announced by the military to hold daily pauses in fighting along one of the main roads in the besieged Palestinian enclave, which has been under relentless Israeli bombardment for more than eight months.

Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main organization delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, said there had been no lull in the fighting.

“There is information that such a decision has been taken, but the political level says that nothing of this decision has been taken,” Lazzarini said at a press conference on Monday.

“So for now, I can tell you that hostilities continue in Rafah and southern Gaza. And operationally nothing has changed yet.”

The Israeli military said on Monday that its forces were continuing operations in the Rafah area, which included ground fighting.

Residents said Israeli forces were advancing deeper into the central and western areas of Rafah. Hamas forces were fighting at close quarters inside the Shaboura camp in the heart of Rafah, according to the group’s armed wing and residents, who reported hearing the sounds of explosions and nonstop gunfire.

The Israeli military announced over the weekend daily pauses from 05:00 GMT to 16:00 GMT in the area from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, to the Salah al-Din road and then northwards.

It later clarified that operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its ongoing attack on southern Gaza.

International aid officials have repeatedly said that Israeli inspections, continued fighting and looting by desperate residents have impeded the delivery of aid. Israeli ground troops have been operating in the southern city of Rafah since early May. They have since closed the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Before the Rafah ground operation, there was already an inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the number of trucks entering the southern Gaza Strip was in the hundreds – nowhere near enough to sustain the daily needs of the population of the enclave of 2 ,3 millions.

‘Hell on earth’

“As we reiterate, humanitarian operations in Gaza must be fully facilitated and all impediments must be eliminated,” UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told The Associated Press on Monday. “We need to be able to deliver aid safely across Gaza.”

With the Israeli assault on Gaza in its ninth month, Haq said, displaced Palestinians in the territory are in urgent need of food, water, sanitation, shelter and healthcare, “with many living near piles of solid waste, increasing the risks to the health”.

He said Israel needs to ensure that the movement of aid convoys and personnel through checkpoints is accelerated, that all roads are operational and that fuel – which is critically scarce – regularly enters Gaza.

Meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in an op-ed in The New York Times that the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip has been turned into “hell on earth” as famine looms.

He said humanitarian aid is obstructed and politicized as hunger and disease spread, “and aid workers, health professionals and journalists have suffered unacceptable losses.”

Echoing his remarks, the Gaza Government’s Social Communications Office accused Israel and the United States of “purposefully” worsening famine-like conditions in Gaza by “withholding humanitarian aid as an instrument of political pressure.”

In a statement released on Monday, the media office accused Israel and the US administration of “deliberately worsening the humanitarian situation” in Gaza to achieve political goals.

Separately, on Monday, Norway said it was increasing its funding to UNRWA by 100 million kronor ($9.3 million).

UNRWA was plunged into crisis in January when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in southern Israel.

The allegations prompted several countries, including top donor the US, to suspend funding to the agency, although many have since resumed payments.

“UNRWA is the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza,” Norwegian Minister for International Development Anne Beathe Tvinnereim said in a statement.

“The war, the accusations made by Israel, the continued attacks on the organization and the funds withheld by major donors have placed UNRWA in an extremely difficult financial situation,” she said.

An independent review by UNRWA, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, found some “issues relating to neutrality” but said Israel had not yet provided evidence for its main allegations.