A new aid convoy entered the besieged Gaza Strip on Monday via the Rafah border crossing, AFP correspondents on the Egyptian and Palestinian sides said, the third since war erupted on October 7.
More than a dozen lorries crossed Rafah, the correspondents said, adding to a previous total of 34 trucks that had entered Gaza on Saturday and Sunday, according to an Egyptian Red Cross official.
The United Nations says at least 100 trucks a day are needed to provide the basic needs of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants as fighting triggered by a massive Hamas onslaught rages on, with thousands killed already.
The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has called for faster aid deliveries to Gaza, emphasizing the need for a “humanitarian pause” in Israel’s conflict with Hamas.
“What’s important (is) more, quicker, and in particular to enter the basic things that make water and electricity supply being restored,” Borrell said, ahead of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers Monday. Borrell said that the few dozen trucks of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza from Egypt was “not enough” and that fuel to produce power and drinking water was particularly needed.
He said ministers would discuss calls from United Nations secretary-general António Guterres for a “humanitarian ceasefire,” and the issue would be on the table at an EU leaders summit on Thursday. “I think that a humanitarian pause is needed in order to allow the humanitarian support to come in and be distributed, seeing that half of the population of Gaza has been moving from their houses,” Borrell said.
“The attacks of missiles, rockets from Hamas, from Gaza, has to stop, and the hostages, people who have been kidnapped, have to be released,” Borrell added.
The 27-nation EU bloc has long been split over its policy on Israel and the Palestinians.
Gabriela De La Cruz, with AFP
