Israel maintains that the last Hamas battalions are inside Rafah, as well as the remaining hostages held by the militant group. Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s national security adviser, said Wednesday that destroying Hamas and other militant groups will take “another seven months,” adding that 2024 would be “a year of war.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said late Wednesday that the amount of aid entering Gaza since the Rafah offensive began has shrunk by nearly 70 percent. Between April 1 and May 6, a daily average of 176 aid trucks entered the besieged enclave — a number “already insufficient to meet the soaring needs,” according to the agency. Since May 7, just after the start of the Rafah operation, the daily average has dwindled to 58 aid trucks. The agency said the figures do not include private-sector cargo and fuel deliveries.
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The figures shared by OCHA differ from those published by Israeli authorities. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency that oversees the Palestinian territories, said 335 humanitarian aid trucks “were transferred to Gaza” on Wednesday alone — similar to the daily figures the agency shared before May 7. The U.N. agencies and Israeli authorities have disputed each other’s figures before.
The discrepancy arises from how the trucks are counted: While Israel includes in its tally all those that enter Gaza, including commercial goods, aid groups count only the aid that is collected and actually distributed.
Israeli restrictions on the movement of humanitarian groups around Gaza and the border crossings, as well as the ongoing fighting, have turned the collection of aid into a lengthy and arduous progress, the United Nations says, making it hard to collect and distribute anything at scale.
The Israeli human rights organization Gisha said Wednesday that it was “deeply concerned” over reports that COGAT was prioritizing the entry of commercial goods over humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
“Humanitarian aid should come in very first thing. They should be given clearance on the roads to drive safely to reach where they need to reach. And then — only then — the private sector should be able to come in.” said Tania Hary, Gisha’s executive director.
Shimon Friedman, COGAT’s international spokesman, told reporters that Israel is trying to get more food and other goods into Gaza. “I do want to make clear that there is no prioritization of the private sector. We are prioritizing aid,” he told reporters. “What we want to see is as much aid as can make its way into the Gaza Strip, and that is what we are prioritizing. We are also facilitating the entry of the private sector as well.”
Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz’s political party submitted a bill Thursday to dissolve parliament. The National Unity party said in a statement that the bill was submitted to dissolve the Knesset and hold elections by October. Earlier this month, Gantz threatened to resign from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government by June 8 if Netanyahu did not come up with a viable plan for after the Gaza war ends. It’s unclear how far the bill will advance, as Netanyahu’s Likud party still has a majority of seats in parliament. Likud said in a statement in response that “during a war, Israel needs to remain united, not divided.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the war in Gaza can’t go on “indefinitely,” as he reiterated his support for a two-state solution. Xi made the remarks in a meeting of senior officials from Arab League nations in Beijing on Thursday. The Chinese leader announced $69 million in emergency humanitarian aid to Gaza and pledged $3 million to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that aids Palestinian refugees.
The White House will send a “senior team” to Cairo this week to discuss opening the Rafah border crossing, an administration official who was not authorized to comment on the record told The Washington Post on Thursday. Egypt has refused to allow traffic through the crossing since Israel began its Rafah offensive and occupied the corridor, citing security concerns. The decision follows a call last Friday between President Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi.
A majority of Israelis support their country’s military response to Hamas in Gaza but are divided over its scope, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center published Thursday. The survey found that 39 percent of Israelis said the country’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, and 34 percent said it has not gone far enough — indicating continued support for the war.
Israel said it achieved “tactical control” over the boundary that separates Gaza and Egypt. An official with the Israel Defense Forces, speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters, said that while Israel does not have “boots on the ground” throughout the boundary, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, its control means Israel can cut off Hamas supplies via underground tunnels in the corridor.
Algeria put forward a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling for a halt to Israel’s military offensive in Rafah and an immediate cease-fire. It also calls for the release of all hostages held by Hamas and an increase in humanitarian aid into the enclave. A vote is expected in the coming days. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States is reviewing the resolution.
At least 36,224 people have been killed and 81,777 injured in Gaza since the war began, said the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 291 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operations in Gaza.
Lior Soroka, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, Lyric Li, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Niha Masih, John Hudson, Karen DeYoung and Susannah George contributed to this report.
