UN aid supplies to Gaza were again halted on Friday, November 17, due to fuel shortages and communication blockages, adding to the misery of thousands of starving and homeless Palestinians as Israeli forces battle Hamas militants in Gaza.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) said civilians face the “possibility of starvation” due to the lack of food supplies.
The war between Israel and Hamas is about to enter its seventh week and shows no sign of abating, despite international calls for a ceasefire or at least a humanitarian pause.
Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that a number of Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli military attack on a group of displaced people near the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Al Jazeera TV reported that nine people were killed in the strike, according to sources. Al Jazeera also reported that at least 18 Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The Israeli military, which is concentrating its attacks in northern Gaza, said its troops and fighter jets continued to apply pressure on Friday.
They said they took control of the Islamic Jihad commander’s stronghold overnight and killed a Hamas fighter inside a school where they found a large amount of weapons.
Earlier, Israel said it had discovered a tunnel used by Hamas at al-Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.
The hospital, filled with patients and displaced persons, has become a focus of global concern. According to Israel, Hamas is storing weapons and ammunition and holding hostages in a network of tunnels that stretch beneath the Shifa-like hospital, using the patients and people who have taken refuge there as human shields. Hamas denies this.
The war was sparked by a cross-border raid by Hamas militants on October 7, the day Israel suffered the most casualties in its 75-year history.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 11,500 Palestinians and at least 4,700 children have now been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military offensive against Hamas-controlled Gaza