Gaza death toll passes 24,000 as UN warns of famine without more aid

Gaza urgently needs more aid or its desperate population will suffer widespread famine and disease, the heads of three major U.N. agencies warned Monday.

That comes as authorities in the enclave reported that the death toll in the Israel-Hamas conflict had surpassed 24,000.

While the U.N. agency chiefs did not directly point a finger at Israel, they said aid delivery is hobbled by the opening of too few border crossings, a slow vetting process for trucks and goods going into Gaza, and continuing fighting throughout the territory — all of which Israel plays a deciding factor in.

Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has prompted unprecedented destruction in the tiny coastal enclave and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and pushed more than a quarter into starvation, according to the U.N.

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It has also stoked regional tensions, with Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen carrying out strikes in support of the Palestinians. A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit an American-owned cargo ship on Monday, days after U.S. and U.K. strikes against the group over its attacks on international shipping.

A day after the White House said it was time for Israel to scale back its military offensive, the World Food Program, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said that new entry routes need to be opened to Gaza, more trucks need to be allowed in each day, and aid workers and those seeking aid need to be allowed to move around safely.

“People in Gaza risk dying of hunger just miles from trucks filled with food,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said. “Every hour lost puts countless lives at risk.”

The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Monday that the bodies of 132 people killed in Israeli strikes were brought to Gaza hospitals over the past day, raising the death toll from the start of the conflict to 24,100.

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The ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and noncombatants in its tally, says two-thirds of those killed in the conflict were women and children. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 8,000 militants.

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On Monday, the military said its forces and aircraft targeted militants in the second-largest city Khan Younis, a current focus of the ground offensive, as well as in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military says it continues to expand its control.

Israel blames Hamas for the high death toll, saying its fighters make use of civilian buildings, and launch attacks from densely populated urban areas.

In Israel, a woman was killed and 12 other people were wounded in a car-ramming and stabbing attack in a suburb of Tel Aviv that police said was carried out by at least two Palestinians. They were later arrested. The police say the suspects stole three different cars and attempted to run down pedestrians.

Palestinians have carried out a number of attacks against Israelis since the start of the conflict, mainly in Jerusalem or the occupied West Bank. Around 350 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, mostly in confrontations during Israeli arrest raids or violent protests.

The fighting, now in its 101st day, has set off an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which was already struggling from a lengthy blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took power in 2007.

The crisis has been especially severe in northern Gaza: the U.N. said Sunday that less than a quarter of aid convoys have reached their destinations in the north in January, because Israeli authorities denied most access. Israeli officials had no immediate comment.

The U.N. agencies said they want access to the Israeli port of Ashdod, located about 40 kilometers north of Gaza, which they say would allow larger amounts of aid to be shipped in and then sent directly to northern Gaza, much of which Israel leveled in the opening weeks of the conflict.

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Israel has blamed the U.N. and other groups for the problems with aid delivery.

Moshe Tetro, an official with COGAT, an Israeli military body in charge of civilian Palestinian affairs, said last week that aid delivery would be more streamlined if the U.N. provided more workers to receive and pack the supplies.

He said more trucks were needed to transfer the aid to Israel for security checks and that the working hours at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt needed to be extended.

After Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and roughly 250 taken hostage, Israel sealed off the territory from aid. It relented after its top ally, the U.S., pressed it to loosen its restrictions.

The U.S., as well as the U.N., have continued to push Israel to ease the flow of aid.