LAZZARINI, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the main organisation delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, said that there had been no pause in the fighting.
“There has been information that such a decision has been taken, but the political level says none of this decision has been taken,” Lazzarini told a press conference on Monday.
“So for the time being, I can tell you that hostilities continue in Rafah and in the south of Gaza. And that operationally, nothing has changed yet.”
The Israeli military said on Monday that its forces were continuing operations in the Rafah area, which included ground fighting.
Residents said Israeli forces were advancing deeper into the central and western areas of Rafah. Hamas forces were fighting from close range inside the Shaboura camp in the heart of Rafah, according to the group’s armed wing and residents, who reported hearing sounds of non-stop explosions and gunfire.
The Israeli military had announced at the weekend the daily pauses from 05:00 GMT until 16:00 GMT in the area from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards.
It later clarified that operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its ongoing assault in southern Gaza.
International humanitarian officials have repeatedly said that Israeli inspections, ongoing fighting, and looting by desperate residents have impeded aid deliveries. Israeli ground troops have been operating in the southern city of Rafah since early May. They have since sealed shut the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Before the Rafah ground operation, there was already an inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip’s south stood in the hundreds – not nearly enough to sustain the daily needs of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million.
“As we have reiterated, humanitarian operations in Gaza must be fully facilitated, and all impediments must be lifted,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told The Associated Press on Monday. “We need to be able to deliver aid safely throughout Gaza.”
With the Israeli assault on Gaza in its ninth month, Haq said, displaced Palestinians in the territory urgently need food, water, sanitation, shelter and healthcare, “with many living near piles of solid waste, heightening health risks”.
He said Israel needs to ensure that the movement of aid convoys and staff members through checkpoints is expedited, that all roads are operational, and that fuel – which is in critically short supply – enters Gaza regularly.
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the impoverished and blockaded Gaza Strip has been turned into “hell on earth” as famine looms.