Israel says it will allow controlled entry of goods into Gaza via merchants
Israel's COGAT said a mechanism has been approved by the cabinet to expand the scope of humanitarian aid, allowing the entry of supplies to Gaza through the private sector.
The agency said the approved goods include basic food products, baby food, fruits and vegetables, and hygiene supplies.
"This aims to increase the volume of aid entering the Gaza Strip, while reducing reliance on aid collection by the U.N. and international organisations," it added.
It was unclear how this aid operation would work given the widespread destruction in Gaza.
Palestinian and U.N. officials say Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.
Images of starving Palestinians including children have alarmed the world in recent weeks, while a video released by Hamas on Sunday showing an emaciated captive drew sharp criticism from Western powers.
Israel in response to a rising international uproar, announced last week steps to let more aid reach Gaza, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, approving air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
Hamas said it was prepared to coordinate with the Red Cross to deliver aid to hostages it holds in Gaza, if Israel permanently opens humanitarian corridors and halts airstrikes during the distribution of aid.
Israel and the United States urged the U.N. in May to work through an organisation they back, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs a U.S. logistics firm run by a former CIA officer and armed U.S. veterans.
The U.N. refused as it questioned GHF neutrality and accused the distribution model of militarising aid and forcing displacement.
Palestinians were killed near GHF sites where limited aid was distributed, with the U.N. estimating that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food since May, most near the organisation's distribution sites.
GHF denies that there have been deadly incidents at its sites, and says the deadliest have been near other aid convoys.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures.
Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.
According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Hamas, thus far, has barred humanitarian organisations from having any kind of access to the hostages and families have little or no details of their conditions.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economist
35 minutes ago
- Economist
How much of Gaza is left standing?
Analysis by independent researchers reveals the scale of the destruction From above, much of Gaza appears flattened. But the full scale of the destruction and the number of people killed remain uncertain. Daily death tolls are issued by local authorities run by Hamas, the Islamist group that still controls parts of the strip, but many doubt their accuracy. Foreign journalists are barred unless embedded with Israeli forces. In the absence of access, independent researchers have turned to satellite images, surveys and public records to estimate what has been lost. Their findings suggest the toll may be even greater than suggested by official reports. The physical damage has been assessed both by what has been destroyed and by the rubble that remains. The first method tracks changes to building outlines in satellite images over time. Using this method, UNOSAT, a UN agency, identified damage to more than 190,000 buildings by early April—roughly 70% of Gaza's pre-war structures. Of these, some 102,000 appear to have been completely destroyed. The World Bank reckons that translates to roughly 300,000 homes lost, including 77% of all apartment buildings. The second approach models how much debris a building of a given size would leave behind if destroyed. The most recent analysis by UN Habitat, another agency, estimated that 53.5m tonnes of rubble now lie across the strip, a 133% increase in 15 months. That has left few havens. Before the war, Gaza's 2m residents, half of them children, lived in 365 square kilometres—a population density similar to Madrid's. But by July 30th, Israeli militarised zones and displacement had pushed the population into just 12.7% of the strip, where many now live in tents. That may be one of the most densely packed places on Earth. The collapse of medical care, sanitation and food supplies has caused thousands of deaths not directly tied to bombs or bullets. A study by Michael Spagat, of Royal Holloway University of London, and others estimated that by January 5th between 4,500 and 12,500 people had died from indirect causes. The same study put the number of violent deaths at roughly 60,000-90,000—more than half of them women, children, or men over the age of 65 (see chart). Another study estimated that 55,000-79,000 Gazans had died from traumatic injuries by the end of June 2024. These independent estimates far exceed official counts, which reached 38,000 in June 2024 and 47,500 in January 2025. If you assume that the ratio between the official figures and the academic estimates have remained the same it would imply that 4-5% of the territory's pre-war population has now been killed. The broader demographic toll is hard to grasp. The studies imply that estimated life expectancy has fallen by more than 35 years, to roughly half the pre-war figure. In percentage terms this drop is bigger than the one recorded during China's Great Leap Forward; in absolute terms it is similar to the one in the Rwanda genocide. For the civilians who have survived, the outlook is bleak. Few basic services are running. By August 1st the UN found that 76% of schools had been directly hit by strikes. Around 95% of hospitals have been significantly damaged. The cost of rebuilding is still uncertain, but huge. In February the World Bank put it at roughly $53bn—more than twice the combined pre-war GDP of Gaza and the West Bank. A full reckoning will be possible only once the fighting ends. But the patchy data available suggest that this is among the most destructive conflicts in recent history.
Reuters
12 hours ago
- Reuters
Terrible thirst hits Gaza with polluted aquifers and broken pipelines
GAZA/CAIRO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Weakened by hunger, many Gazans trek across a ruined landscape each day to haul all their drinking and washing water - a painful load that is still far below the levels needed to keep people healthy. Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups. Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhoea and hepatitis. Israeli pipelines that once supplied Gaza with much of its clean water are now dry. Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war. Although it resumed some supply later, pipelines were damaged and Gaza water officials say none has entered recently. COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not respond to a request for comment on whether Israel is supplying water. Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators - for which fuel is rarely available. Moaz Mukhaimar, aged 23 and a university student before the war, said he has to walk about a kilometre, queuing for two hours, to fetch water. He often goes three times a day, dragging it back to the family tent over bumpy ground on a small metal handcart. "How long will we have to stay like this?" he asked, pulling two larger canisters of very brackish water to use for cleaning and two smaller ones of cleaner water to drink. His mother, Umm Moaz, 53, said the water he collects is needed for the extended family of 20 people living in their small group of tents in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. "The children keep coming and going and it is hot. They keep wanting to drink. Who knows if tomorrow we will be able to fill up again," she said. Their struggle for water is replicated across the tiny, crowded territory where nearly everybody is living in temporary shelters or tents without sewage or hygiene facilities and not enough water to drink, cook and wash as disease spreads. The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 litres a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily consumption in Israel is around 247 litres a day according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Bushra Khalidi, humanitarian policy lead for aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 litres a day. Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were "ripping through Gaza", with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it provides adequate aid for the territory's 2.3 million inhabitants. "Water scarcity is definitely increasing very much each day and people are basically rationing between either they want to use water for drinking or they want to use a lot for hygiene," said Danish Malik, a global water and sanitation official for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Merely queuing for water and carrying it now accounts for hours each day for many Gazans, often involving jostling with others for a place in the queue. Scuffles have sometimes broken out, Gazans say. Collecting water is often the job of children as their parents seek out food or other necessities. "The children have lost their childhood and become carriers of plastic containers, running behind water vehicles or going far into remote areas to fill them for their families," said Munther Salem, water resources head at the Gaza Water and Environment Quality Authority. With water so hard to get, many people living near the beach wash in the sea. A new water pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates is planned, to serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza from a desalination plant in Egypt. But it could take several more weeks to be connected. Much more is needed, aid agencies say. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said the long-term deprivations were becoming deadly. "Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects." Oxfam's Khalidi said a ceasefire and unfettered access for aid agencies was needed to resolve the crisis. "Otherwise we will see people dying from the most preventable diseases in Gaza - which is already happening before our eyes."
The Guardian
21 hours ago
- The Guardian
Increase in vapes found on Britain's coastline by beach clean volunteers
Volunteer beach cleaners are finding more vapes than ever before as plastic pollution chokes Britain's coastline. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) on Wednesday launches its annual beach clean, which last year involved more than 15,000 volunteers who completed more than 1,200 litter surveys. The charity is calling for swift and strong action at the UN's global plastics conference in Geneva this week, where countries are deciding on their pollution policies. Some forms of plastic are on the rise, according to MCS litter volunteers. Of those surveyed, 41% mentioned finding more plastic items (including plastic cups, bottle caps/lids, microplastics), including 19% more vapes, 26% more fishing litter (including lines/nets), 11% more dog poo bags and 11% more wet wipes. But there were some positive findings that demonstrated how good policy can make a difference. Volunteers on the beach cleans log every piece of litter they find so that a comprehensive dataset of rubbish on beaches can be built up and trends observed. Their research found that the number plastic bags littered on beaches reduced by 80% between 2015 and 2024, after a charge on carrier bags was introduced. The MCS says this shows that policy changes can quickly make a positive difference to the amount of pollution in the environment. Summer is a bad time for litter on UK beaches. Seventy-four per cent of MCS volunteers said they found an increase in beach litter during the summer, compared with winter months, due to increased visitor numbers plus a gap in public awareness around environmental impacts. Volunteers who take part in the litter pick have asked local authorities and governments in the UK to build better infrastructure including more accessible bins on beaches. Litter pickers said the problem was widespread and harming wildlife. Violet Fraser, who has been cleaning beaches on the Western Isles in Scotland, said she had found birds' nests with plastic in, while Colette Edwards in Norfolk reported regularly finding seals caught in discarded nets on her local beach. Plastic is a particular scourge on beaches as it does not biodegrade, instead breaking down into microplastics that stay in the environment indefinitely, and these are easily ingested by marine animals and can cause illness and even death. A spokesperson for the MCS said: 'The amount of plastic found on beaches increased by 9.5% between 2023 and 2024. The continued presence of plastics on our coastline highlights the need for a circular economy in which consumers have more options and access to use refillable and reusable products. 'Beachwatch data has already been used by governments across the UK as evidence to introduce litter reducing policy – such as the carrier bag charges and bans on certain single-use plastics, such as straws, cutlery, plates and bowls, and the recent UK-wide commitment to ban plastic wet wipes.' Isaac Kenyon, a volunteer, said: 'There's something deeply grounding about standing on a shoreline and knowing that your small actions are part of something much bigger. Every piece of litter picked up is one less hazard for wildlife, one less piece of plastic in the ocean, and one small step toward a healthier planet.' The Great British Beach Clean runs from 19-28 September.
