Israel has announced new restrictions on humanitarian aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip, as well as the closure of the Rafah border crossing as previously scheduled. This development comes amid rising tensions and violence, with Israeli forces reportedly killing at least nine Palestinians, further straining a fragile ceasefire with Hamas.
Effective Wednesday, Israel informed the United Nations that it will permit only 300 aid trucks into Gaza daily, which is half of the number previously authorized. Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, confirmed receipt of the notice from Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the military branch responsible for overseeing aid access.
According to the COGAT notice, no fuel or gas will be allowed into Gaza except for specific humanitarian infrastructure needs. These restrictions were announced following statements from Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, who pledged to resume military operations in Gaza once all remaining hostages are recovered.
Katz articulated in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the “great challenge” facing Israel after the hostages are returned will be the destruction of Hamas’s military tunnels in Gaza. He indicated that the operation would involve the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and be executed through an international mechanism led by the United States, aiming to demilitarize Gaza and neutralize Hamas’s weaponry.
In the wake of these announcements, Israeli forces conducted new attacks across Gaza, resulting in the deaths of at least nine Palestinians, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera. Six of the victims were reported from Gaza City and three from Khan Younis in the southern region.
This escalation occurs amid a precarious truce that has involved reciprocal exchanges of prisoners and hostages. On Monday, Hamas released 20 Israeli captives, while Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, with 154 of them being exiled to Egypt. Though Hamas had agreed to return the remains of 28 deceased Israeli captives, it initially handed over only four coffins. On Tuesday, four additional bodies were delivered to the Red Cross for forensic identification before being transferred to Israel.
The Israeli military has accused Hamas of violating ceasefire terms related to the return of the hostages’ remains, casting further doubt on the truce’s sustainability. As part of the truce, Israel has also returned the bodies of 45 Palestinians to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), while retaining the remains of hundreds of Palestinians killed over the past two years.
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