ISRAEL pounded southern Gaza with air strikes early on Sunday and said it would intensify its attacks in the enclave’s north, as the U.S. committed to getting more aid to Palestinians running out of food, water, medicines and fuel.
Palestinian media reported at least 11 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Palestinian media also said Israel was striking the southern city of Rafah.
The overnight strikes came hours after Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari called on Gazans to move south out of harm’s way.
“For your own safety move southward. We will continue to attack in the area of Gaza City and increase attacks,” Hagari said in a briefing to Israeli reporters on Saturday.
The first humanitarian aid convoy to be allowed in to the besieged Gaza Strip since war broke out arrived through the Rafah border crossing on Saturday. The United Nations said the 20-truck convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received by the Palestinian Red Crescent.
But the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA) said the volume of goods that entered on Saturday was equivalent to about 4% of the daily average of imports into Gaza prior to the hostilities, and only a fraction of what was needed after 13 days of siege of an enclave that is home to 2.3 million people.
U.S. President Joe Biden cheered the arrival of the aid after days of intense negotiations and said the United States was committed to ensuring more assistance would enter via the Rafah border crossing.
“We will continue to work with all parties,” Biden said in a statement.
The United States proposed late on Saturday a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that says Israel has a right to defend itself, and demands Iran stop exporting arms to “militias and terrorist groups threatening peace and security across the region.”
Israel started its “total siege” of Gaza after an Oct. 7 cross-border attack on southern Israel by militants of the Islamist movement Hamas, who killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, in a shock rampage that has traumatized Israel.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that Israel’s air and missile strikes in response had killed at least 4,385 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, and more than a million of the territory’s people have been displaced.
