Israel has said it will allow limited supplies of food into Gaza as it announced the launch of an intensified ground offensive into the battered Palestinian enclave.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that pressure from allies was behind the move. Late the previous evening, his office had said Israel would open the way for some food to enter the Gaza Strip following a “recommendation” from the army.
The announcement came shortly after the Israeli military launched “extensive ground operations” that are reported to have killed more than 150 people in the last 24 hours.
“Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement late on Sunday.
Pressure from allies
The announcement comes amid mounting international pressure on Israel to lift a two-month-long siege that threatens widespread famine in the besieged territory.
Netanyahu said in a video address on Monday that the move came after “allies” had voiced concern about “images of hunger”.
Israel’s “greatest friends in the world”, he said without mentioning specific countries, had said there is “one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.”
“Therefore, to achieve victory, we need to somehow solve the problem,” Netanyahu said.
The aid that would be let into Gaza would be “minimal”, he said, without specifying precisely when supplies would resume.
A spokesperson for the United Nations aid chief, Tom Fletcher, confirmed the agency had been approached by Israel to “resume limited aid delivery”, adding that discussions are ongoing about the logistics, “given the conditions on the ground”.
Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said Palestinian authorities had not been informed when the border would be opened, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.
Netanyahu’s far-right allies remain opposed to allowing any supplies into Gaza, insisting that military might and hunger will secure victory over Hamas.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir described the decision to allow limited food into the enclave as a “grave mistake”.
Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, from Ben-Gvir’s party, denounced the plan as a “tragedy”, saying it directly harms the “war effort to achieve victory” in Gaza.
Israel has been accused of weaponising hunger and using the blockade to try to ethnically cleanse the enclave.
Despite the blockade and intensified military offensive, sources on both sides told the Reuters news agency there has been no progress in a new round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Qatar.
Netanyahu said the talks included discussions on a truce and a deal on the captives, as well as a proposal to end the war, in return for the exile of Hamas and the demilitarisation of the enclave – terms Hamas has previously rejected.
The Israeli military suggested in a later statement that it could still scale down operations to help reach a deal in Doha, Qatar.
However, Netanyahu stressed in his video address that the aim of the intensified offensive is for Israel’s forces to “take control of all” of Gaza.
“The fighting is intense and we are making progress. We will take control of all the territory of the Strip,” he said. “We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped.”
Over the past week, Israel’s military said it had conducted a preliminary wave of strikes on more than 670 Hamas targets in Gaza. It said it killed dozens of Hamas fighters.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said in the week to Sunday, at least 464 Palestinians were killed, many of them women and children.
On Monday morning, sources told Al Jazeera that at least 23 Palestinians had been killed across Gaza since dawn, including five near al-Faluja market in Jabalia and six in Khan Younis.
There have also been reports of Israeli attacks in and around Nasser Medical Complex, and the targeting of the intensive care unit at the Indonesian Hospital, where at least 55 people are trapped, including four doctors and eight nurses.
