At least 200 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the north Gauze local time on Saturday, according to local health officials, while the United Nations said it would halt aid deliveries through the enclave’s main crossing after several trucks were stolen.
The development underscores the worsening humanitarian situation in the enclave, where the Israeli army has killed tens of thousands of people and chronic hunger threatens the remaining civilian population. On Friday, two children and a woman were crushed to death while trying to buy food at a bakery in central Gaza.
The deadly strikes also come with an uneasy truce underway between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would allow his forces to focus on Gaza.
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Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said five buildings housing more than 200 people were hit in the Tal Al Zaatar and Beit Lahiya areas of northern Gaza.
“They called for help, and everyone who tried to help was bombed. Unfortunately, the cries for help disappeared; they were killed,” said Dr. Abu Safiya. The attack in Tel Al Zaatar left more than 100 people under the rubble and only one person was pulled out.
“This scene has become everyday, and no one is accountable, no one can stop the killing of innocent people.”
A spokesman for the Gaza Civil Defense said that more than 40 people from the “Al-Araj” family were killed in a single attack on a building in the Tel Al Zaatar neighborhood.
CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for further comment on the target of the attack and measures taken to minimize civilian casualties.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 44,429 people have been killed and more than 105,000 wounded in the enclave since the war began last year. The figure is believed to be an underestimate, as much of northern Gaza is inaccessible and many victims never make it to the hospital for registration.
The UN is pausing the delivery of aid
The deadly attacks coincided with the theft of trucks carrying food and other supplies into the besieged strip, prompting the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency to halt aid deliveries through the main crossing between Israel and Gaza.
The “difficult decision” to end deliveries through Kerem Shalom comes at a time when “famine is rapidly deepening,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warned on Sunday.
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The decision came after “several food trucks” were “hijacked” along the route on Saturday, he wrote on X. A source involved in aid transfers inside Gaza told CNN that five more trucks loaded with flour were stolen near the crossing on Sunday.
“The road from this crossing has not been safe for months,” Lazzarini noted in his post, referring to an incident on November 16 when armed gangs stole nearly 100 aid trucks in what UNRWA described as “one of the worst” incidents of their kind.
The humanitarian operation in Gaza has become “needlessly impossible,” he added, citing obstruction by Israeli authorities and political decisions to limit aid volumes as complicating factors in the breakdown of law and order in the enclave.
Lazzarini emphasized that Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible for the protection of aid workers and supplies. Israeli authorities “must ensure the safe flow of aid to Gaza and must refrain from attacking aid workers,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid to Gaza, said “dozens” of other humanitarian organizations continued to deliver supplies to people in the enclave.
“Last week, more than 1,000 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were collected from various crossings and distributed throughout the Gaza Strip,” the agency added in a statement.
“We will continue to work with the international community to increase the amount of aid reaching Gaza, through the Kerem Shalom crossing, as well as the other four crossings between Israel and Gaza.”