UN chief makes desperate plea for aid stuck on border to enter Gaza: ‘The difference between life and death’

The head of the UN has said that aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s border with Gaza are the “difference between life and death to many people” during a desperate plea to “make them move” as quickly as possible.

The enclave has been facing near-constant aerial bombardment by Israel in retaliation for a cross-border attack by Hamas almost two weeks ago that killed around 1,400 people and saw up to 200 hostages taken into Gaza. On top of air strikes, Israel has also enacted a total blockade of the strip, which has left water, power, fuel, food and medical supplies either having run out completely or dwindling. Officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza say that more than 4,000 people have been killed since the Israeli bombardment began.

Speaking on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only border point not controlled by Tel Aviv, Antonio Guterres said: “These trucks are not just trucks – they are a lifeline, they are the difference between life and death to many people in Gaza.

“To see them stuck here makes me very clear – what we need is to make them move, to make them move to the other side of this wall, to make them move as quickly as possible and as many as possible,” he added.

It comes as Israel prepares for an expected ground offensive into Gaza. The country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, laid out the objectives of the military’s campaign against Hamas to the Israeli parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committee on Friday. The first stage was the current military operation, meant to destroy Hamas’s infrastructure, Mr Gallant said, involving airstrikes and ground operations. Then the military would defeat “pockets of resistance”.

“The third phase will require the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel,” the minister said, without offering more detail. Mr Gallant did not say who Israel expected to run Gaza if and when Hamas is toppled.

It came after a fiery speech on Thursday to Israeli infantry soldiers on the Gaza border, in which Mr Gallant urged them to “be ready” to move in. Israel has called up some 360,000 reserves and massed tens of thousands of troops along the Gaza border. “Whoever sees Gaza from afar now, will see it from the inside,” he said. “It might take a week, a month, two months until we destroy them,” he added, referring to Hamas.

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The Israeli military said it had hit 100 Hamas “operational targets” into Friday, claiming the strikes were aimed at “destroying tunnel shafts, munitions warehouses and dozens of operational headquarters”.

Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy airstrikes in Khan Younis, a town in the territory’s south, and ambulances carrying men, women and children streamed into the local Nasser hospital. An airstrike hit a Greek Orthodox church housing displaced Palestinians near the hospital late Thursday. The military said it had targeted a Hamas command centre nearby, causing damage to a church wall. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 16 Palestinian Christians were killed.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said targeting churches that were used as shelters for people fleeing bombing was “a war crime that cannot be ignored”. Video from the scene showed a destroyed building and a wounded boy being carried from the rubble at night.

Inside Gaza, doctors and health officials told The Independent that they will soon be forced to switch off dialysis machines which could result in the deaths of 1,000 kidney failure patients. They added that they were improvising with medicines to treat the wounded and begging petrol stations for fuel to keep their generators on.

Dr Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the health ministry, issued a plea that hospitals across the besieged strip were in “dire need of every pill, every medical consumable, every drop of fuel, every member of staff, every bed and every ambulance”.

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Families, meanwhile, said they were in “a living hell”. More than a million people have been displaced in Gaza, while Israel has issued orders to evacuate the northern part of Gaza ahead of the expected ground offensive. Though prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called areas in south Gaza “safe zones” earlier this week, Israeli military spokesman Nir Dinar said on Friday: “There are no safe zones.” Thousands have taken refuge in UN schools or shelters as well as hospitals, but this has added to the complications in trying to treat those who are wounded.

Sara, 21, a student who is twice displaced with her family and is now in the south of the enclave, is living with 30 people to a room. She said the rest of her extended family were trying to shelter in a UN school in horrific conditions.

“There is no electricity, no water, no toilets. This is the fifth war and these are the most terrifying days of my entire life”.

UN officials said that with the bombings across all of Gaza, some Palestinians who had fled the north appeared to be going back. “The strikes, coupled with extremely difficult living conditions in the south, appear to have pushed some to return to the north, despite the continuing heavy bombing there,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said.

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said: “[I] can tell you with certainty that any further escalation or even continuation of military activities will just be catastrophic for the people of Gaza.”

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A ground operation would only increase the need for aid, but there appeared little prospect of the amount aid agencies say is required making it into Gaza. Egypt’s foreign minister hit out at the suggestion that his country was holding up matters, blaming Israel instead. He said that “Western media” were “holding Egypt responsible for the crossing closure despite Israeli targeted attacks and refusal of aid entry”.

Work began on Friday to repair the border road that had been damaged in airstrikes, with trucks unloading gravel and bulldozers and other road repair equipment filling in large craters.

Earlier, the United States had said details of a deal to send aid through the Rafah crossing were still being hammered out. Agreement had been reached for the passage of the first 20 trucks, it revealed. UN officials have said this will be a fraction of what is needed. Before the latest conflict, about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily. Hamas called “talking about 20 trucks” an “attempt to throw dust in the eyes” that is “misleading to the public opinion about resolving the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.

Israel said on Friday morning that the status of aid into Gaza through Egypt was still to be determined. Fuel was not on the list of supplies Tel Aviv said would be allowed into the strip. Israel has said it will allow no aid to enter from its territory until Hamas releases the hostages it took. It has said aid can enter through Egypt as long as it does not end up in the hands of Hamas.

Egypt and Israel are still negotiating the entry of fuel for hospitals. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Hamas has stolen fuel from UN facilities and Israel wants assurances that won’t happen again.

Juliette Touma, from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the UNRWA, said Gaza has “become a hellhole” over the last couple of weeks. Speaking to the BBC, she said: “Time is running out. It has been almost two weeks. Two very long weeks UNRWA has not been able to bring in any supplies into Gaza.”

Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak visited Egypt on Friday, having visited Israel the previous day. He held talks with the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with Downing Street saying the UK’s “priority” is to focus on the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow humanitarian aid to enter and for British nationals to leave the bombarded territory.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Sunak said: “All leaders must work together to avoid any regional escalation and ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians in Gaza.”

Mr Sunak also met Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo and “expressed his deep condolences for the loss of civilian lives in Gaza”. The two leaders also “agreed on the need for all parties to take steps to protect civilians” and “stressed that Hamas do not represent the Palestinian people,” Mr Sunak’s office said in a statement.

On Saturday, a hastily convened Cairo Peace Summit will bring together several Arab and European heads of state and government, alongside foreign ministers. It will include Mr Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah, UK foreign secretary James Cleverly, China’s envoy for Middle East issues Zhai Jun, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres, and European Council president Charles Michel among others.

However, the lack of top-level US representation has dampened expectations of what might be achieved.