Clarion India
GAZA – Dozens of Palestinians waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City have been killed or wounded after the group was shot at a main roundabout, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground.
Bodies were seen on the ground after the attack with rescuers unable to reach them due to the danger of further Israeli strikes, according to the correspondent.
For days, residents of northern Gaza have been desperately searching for food, with many taking a long trek towards the south by foot, amid growing reports of malnutrition and starvation.
Palestinian fighters ‘retain military capability’ as battle for Zeitoun rages: report
Despite months of Israel’s occupation and military operations in northern Gaza, Israeli forces have failed to suppress Palestinian fighters who are engaged in intense battles in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City, war monitors say.
US-based think tanks, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), said that despite two “clearing operations” by Israeli forces in Zeitoun, at least seven Palestinian armed groups are fighting against Israeli forces in the area.
Palestinian fighters in Zeitoun carried out at least 92 attacks on Israeli forces between February 19 and 28, the ISW/CTP said in their latest battlefield assessment.
“This high attack rate involving at least seven Palestinian militias using sophisticated military capabilities indicates that Palestinian fighters have retained military capacity in southern Gaza City despite two Israeli clearing operations there,” the think tanks said.
“The militias likely infiltrated into previously cleared areas of southern Gaza City from the uncleared central Gaza Strip,” they said.
Canada considers airdropping humanitarian aid into Gaza, minister says
Canada’s International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen has said that the country is exploring options for delivering humanitarian aid, and “airdrops of aid into Gaza, in partnership with like-minded countries like Jordan”, were possible, Al Jazeera reports.
Hussen, who visited Egypt and Jordan last week, said that drawn-out Israeli inspections on aid trucks at the border with Rafah mean that nowhere near enough aid is entering Gaza.
Ottawa has provided 100 million Canadian dollars ($74m), including 40 million Canadian dollars ($30m) in January alone, towards aid in Gaza since Israel’s ground invasion began.
“I just came back from the region, and Canadian aid is making a difference,” he told reporters.
Amnesty chief urges European Union to fund UNRWA ‘without delay’
The secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, has written to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, urging the EU to continue its funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, “without delay”.
“Suspension of funding to UNRWA, in a context where alarming signs of genocide exist, risks significantly exacerbating if not contributing to the harms which the Genocide Convention seeks to prevent,” Callamard wrote.
Callamard acknowledged the need for allegations against around a dozen of UNRWA’s 30,000 staff to be independently investigated but said that “suspending UNRWA funding also risks legitimising the practice of collective punishment of Palestinians”.
