A United Nations chief warned Tuesday that up to 14,000 babies in Gaza could die “in the next 48 hours” if humanitarian aid does not arrive quickly. While Israel has had to accept the entry of some trucks with humanitarian aid amid its military’s occupation campaign in the Gaza Strip, experts consider it completely inadequate.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher emphasized the urgency of the situation, saying thousands of trucks loaded with baby food and nutritional supplies are ready to enter Gaza but remain stuck at the border.
On Monday afternoon, amid the bombing of hospitals and schools and the forced displacement of Palestinians in the city of Khan Younis, Israel allowed five aid trucks carrying baby food and other essential supplies to enter Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, marking the first such delivery in nearly three months.
However, Fletcher described the delivery as “a drop in the ocean,” adding that the aid had not yet reached communities in need.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened dramatically in the past 11 weeks due to the total blockade imposed by Israel, which has severely restricted the entry of food, medicine, and fuel into the territory. Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war amidst the genocide it is carrying out and its plan to expand the ethnic cleansing of the population of the Gaza Strip in what it calls Operation “Gideon’s Chariots.” This includes the occupation of the entire northern and central parts of the territory and ethnic cleansing through the forced displacement of Gazans to concentration camps in the south, where Israel and U.S. mercenaries will be responsible for distributing food and aid.
According to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, one in five Gazans faces starvation, and nearly 71,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.
Access to trucks carrying aid and food is impossible for the majority of the population: although they entered the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the northern route will likely be under fire from aircraft and ground troops, who have never hesitated to attack convoys carrying humanitarian aid. This means that for many Gazans, the choice will be between dying of hunger or attempting the journey and risking being killed by Israeli bombing or snipers. Furthermore, the distribution is completely controlled by the Israeli army, and many families have already been deprived of access to this aid.
International Pressure and the Netanyahu Crisis
The influx of aid, even if minimal, responds to international pressure in the face of reports and images of the ongoing genocide and widespread famine. Netanyahu had indicated that the minimal reopening of the Kerem Gate served only a diplomatic purpose: “Israel’s friends [the United States] have told it that they will no longer support it if images of mass famine are disseminated.”
This caused friction within the very governing coalition supporting Netanyahu, where far-right religious parties openly support and promote the total extermination of the Palestinian population. For this reason, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir criticized Netanyahu’s decision, calling it a “grave mistake.”
Pressure from the United Kingdom, France, and Canada was added this Monday. In a joint statement, the French president and the Canadian and British prime ministers expressed their “opposition” to the continuation of Israel’s “military operations” in Gaza.
“We will not stand idly by as the Netanyahu government continues these atrocious actions. If Israel does not end the new military offensive and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take additional concrete steps in response.”
The statement is patently hypocritical coming from three of the powers that have politically, financially, and militarily supported Israel’s genocide, which has lasted almost 600 days and claimed the lives of more than 60,000 Palestinians. In countries like France, organizations and activists fighting for the Palestinian cause are persecuted and criminalized, such as our comrade Anasse Kazib, spokesperson for Révolution Permanente, or with the state’s attempts to dismantle the pro-Palestinian organization Urgence Palestina and the anti-fascist organization Joven Guardia.
However, the hypocrisy of these powers does not lessen the discomfort it generates in the Netanyahu government, which responded on Monday by accusing them of “fomenting terrorism.”
In a post on X, Netanyahu stated, “By calling on Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before the Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders of London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7,” and claimed that such posturing by nations traditionally considered allies of the Israeli government opens the door to more attacks on Israel.
Such critical statements of Israel’s traditional allies would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago and marks a new moment. The situation reveals clearly the brutality of the new phase of the Israeli offensive and the unfeasibility of its objectives, which at this point coincide with the unfeasibility of the Netanyahu government itself.
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Israeli airstrikes have intensified in Gaza, and at least 60 people, more than half of them women and children, were killed overnight Monday. According to the Ministry of Health, more than 300 Palestinians were killed in the past three days alone.
Over the past week, Israeli attacks have crippled the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, and the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and cutting off access to critical medical services for already vulnerable communities.
The brutality of the Israeli genocide is already revitalizing the Gaza solidarity movement, which was seen last year with solidarity camps at major universities in the U.S., the UK, France, and Spain, among others. Despite the policies of persecution against pro-Palestinian activists implemented by Trump and Macron, the mobilizations have been reactivated with new encampments and mass actions such as those seen in recent days on the anniversary of the Nakba, which brought together more than half a million people in London and hundreds of thousands in major cities around the world.