GAZA CITY, Palestine: Israeli airstrikes continued across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, despite growing international condemnation of the expanding offensive, killing 82 people, including women and children.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 53,655 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023.
A ministry statement said that 82 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours, while 262 people were injured, taking the number of injuries to 121,950 in the Israeli onslaught.
Meanwhile, Israel started to allow dozens of humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, however, the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
No aid trucks enter Gaza
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reported that no aid trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point from Israel into southern Gaza.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric stated late Tuesday that although some aid shipments had entered Gaza, distribution efforts were stalled.
Israeli forces required the aid to be transferred onto different vehicles, causing delays, and aid workers ultimately ran out of time to deliver the supplies to designated points.
Meanwhile, Israel’s agency responsible for coordinating humanitarian assistance to Gaza claimed that trucks were crossing into the enclave on Wednesday morning.
However, it remained uncertain whether those deliveries could proceed further into Gaza for actual distribution.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) added that its teams had waited for several hours at the crossing on Tuesday in hopes of collecting the supplies but were unable to proceed with the operation.
Mahmoud Abbas seeks immediate action against Iran
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday called upon the world leaders to take immediate action to end Israel’s siege on Gaza.
“I call on world leaders to take urgent and decisive measures to break the siege on our people in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid during a visit to Beirut
“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said.
Abbas arrived in Beirut on Wednesday for talks with his Lebanese counterpart, Joseph Aoun, and other senior officials.
Pope calls for ‘sufficient humanitarian aid’
Pope Leo XIV has called for sufficient humanitarian aid to be allowed into war-ravaged Gaza.
“The situation in the Gaza Strip is worrying and painful,” the pope said during his first weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“I renew my heartfelt appeal to allow the entry of sufficient humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities, the heartbreaking price of which is paid by children, the elderly, the sick,” he said.
