Israel says it is opening a new humanitarian aid crossing into the Gaza Strip amid mounting U.S. pressure to get more assistance to Palestinians struggling with shortages of food and shelter since the Israel-Hamas war began.
In a joint statement Friday, the Israel Defense Forces and COGAT, the agency coordinating Israeli government activities in occupied territories, said they are preparing to open the Kissufim crossing.
The statement, released on social media account X, said the IDF and COGAT were acting “in accordance with the directive from the political echelon and as part of the effort to increase the volume and routes of aid to Gaza.”
The statement said the IDF had built inspection facilities and protective infrastructure at the Kissufim crossing, and paved roads both in Israeli territory and within Gaza to allow the transfer of aid to the southern part of Gaza.
Kissufim is a small border crossing into southern Gaza near Kibbutz Kissufim, one of the sites attacked by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, terror assault on Israel that sparked the war.
Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been designated as terror groups by the United States, the U.K. and other Western countries.
The crossing has mostly been unused except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The opening comes as a deadline set by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin draws near. In a letter delivered Oct. 13, Austin and Blinken gave the Israelis 30 days to boost its humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza or face the possibility of cuts in U.S. military aid.
The letter called for Israel to enable a minimum of 350 trucks a day to enter Gaza through four crossings and to open a fifth humanitarian entry point.
During a U.S. State Department briefing Thursday, spokesman Mathew Miller mentioned the new crossing as he listed efforts Israel has taken to meet the demands made in the letter. Miller said that included efforts to stop looting from humanitarian trucks and an expansion of the Mawasi humanitarian area within Gaza.
Miller said U.S. officials have seen as many as 229 humanitarian trucks enter Gaza two days ago, which he described as an improvement.
As the Biden administration has just over two months left, it is unclear what will happen with the Biden-Austin demands, and Miller said he would not speculate on that.
He did say that the U.S. has made clear “there are potential legal and policy considerations” if Israel fails to improve humanitarian assistance to Gaza and implement steps outlined in the letter.
Miller said there have been active discussions with Israel as recently as the past several days, and an assessment will be made at the end of the 30-day period laid out in the letter.
At a briefing Friday at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Tremblay, citing a new report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said the situation in Gaza is extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating.
The report said there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip. Tremblay said, “immediate action — within days not weeks — is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation.”
Tremblay also updated the situation in the West Bank, citing a report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, which said multiple Israeli military operations in the north this week included airstrikes and other lethal war-like tactics, which appear to exceed law enforcement standards.
The spokeswoman said initial information indicated eight Palestinians were killed and four others injured during Tuesday’s operations in Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarm.
OCHA reports that between Oct. 29 and Nov. 4, Israel settlers carried out 35 attacks against Palestinians that caused casualties or property damage, including to olive trees that were vandalized.
Since the beginning of October, OCHA has documented 177 settler incidents directly related to the olive harvest in 73 communities across the West Bank, most of which caused casualties or property damage.
Also Friday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, issued a statement saying the IDF used two excavators and a bulldozer to destroy part of a fence and a concrete structure at a UNIFIL position in Ras Naqoura.
In a statement posted to its X account, UNIFIL said the IDF responded to their protest by denying any activity was taking place inside the UNIFIL position.
The UNIFIL statement went on to say the “deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable UNIFIL property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701.”
In its own statement Friday, the IDF said it discovered and dismantled what it said was a Hezbollah terrorist training center located 200 meters from an UNIFIL post. They said the compound was “used by terrorists for training, studying, and storing large quantities of weapons.”
On its website, the IDF released pictures and videos of weapons and other materials it said it confiscated from the location. It did not identify the location of what it called the Hezbollah training center or the adjacent UNIFIL post and it was unclear if it was near the Ras Naqoura position.
VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
