World Food Programme suspends movement in Gaza, says vehicle hit by bullets near IDF post
Organization says it got ‘multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach’ checkpoint, no staff inside vehicle were harmed; IDF does not immediately comment
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armored vehicles received “multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach” the Wadi Gaza bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances,” WFP said.
It said the vehicle was a “few meters” from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday that aid operations in Gaza were “heavily restricted by hostilities, insecurity, and mass evacuation orders affecting aid transport routes and facilities.”
The UN Security Council will meet Thursday at the request of Britain and Switzerland, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Britain’s UN mission posted on X: “The U.N. has warned aid operations and staff in Gaza are at risk, at a time when a vaccine campaign is urgently needed to stop a polio outbreak.”
The UN is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, after the World Health Organization said a 10-month-old baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
Israel’s Channel 13 reported on Wednesday night that Jerusalem had okayed temporary humanitarian truces in the Strip in order to facilitate polio vaccinations.
According to the report, the decision was made at US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s demand when he visited last week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and security chiefs were said to have approved the step without updating the security cabinet ministers.
The Prime Minister’s Office denied authorizing the truce, but confirmed it had okayed “designating certain areas in the Strip.” It claimed the move was presented in the security cabinet and got their support.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid “total lawlessness” in the enclave.
To that end, the IDF said on Wednesday that it was creating a new position within the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories unit to act as a liaison for humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip.
COGAT official Col. Elad Goren would be the first “head of the humanitarian-civil effort in the Gaza Strip,” and be promoted to the rank of brigadier general, the IDF said.
The new role would “deal with the integration and implementation of the humanitarian effort in the Gaza Strip and the coordination with the international community, in a way that will allow the implementation of the humanitarian effort while upholding the security interests of the State of Israel,” the military said.
“The IDF sees great importance in the continuing humanitarian effort in the Gaza Strip, in order to continue fighting the terrorist organization Hamas, and within the framework of achieving the goals of the war,” it added.
The IDF said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi was authorized by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to create the new role.
The war in the Palestinian enclave began on October 7, 2023, with the shock Hamas invasion and onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 were seized as hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has said that more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the ensuing months of war in the Gaza Strip, although the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
The UN estimates that some 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced by the war, and IDF assessments in July found that some 1.9 million people are residing in the Israeli-designated “humanitarian zone.”
The zone is located in the al-Mawasi area on the southern Strip’s coast, western neighborhoods of Khan Younis, and central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group. As of mid-August, the zone is just over 42 square kilometers, or 11% of the total size of the Gaza Strip.
