Nearly three dozen trucks entered Gaza on Sunday in the largest aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products.
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The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a "second stage" in the war ignited by Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 incursion. The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.
Video: IDF troops in the Gaza Strip / Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Communications were restored to most of Gaza's 2.3 million people Sunday after an Israeli bombardment described by residents as the most intense of the war knocked out phone and internet services late Friday.
On Sunday, 33 trucks carrying water, food, and medicine entered the only border crossing from Egypt, a spokesperson at the Rafah crossing, Wael Abo Omar, told The Associated Press.
After visiting the Rafah crossing, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court called the suffering of civilians "profound" and said he had not been able to enter Gaza. "These are the most tragic of days," said Karim Khan, whose court has been investigating the actions of Israeli and Palestinian authorities since 2014.
Khan called on Israel to respect international law but stopped short of accusing it of war crimes. He called Hamas' Oct. 7 attack a serious violation of international humanitarian law. "The burden rests with those who aim the gun, missile, or rocket in question," he said.
The Israeli military said Sunday that it had struck more than 450 terrorist targets over the past 24 hours, including Hamas command centers and anti-tank missile launching positions. Huge plumes of smoke rose over Gaza City. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said dozens of terrorists were killed.
Hagari, who said ground operations were intensifying, also reiterated calls for Gaza residents to move south, saying they'd have better access to food, water, and medicine there.
"This is a matter of urgency," he said.
The Hamas military wing said its terrorists clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest Gaza Strip with small arms and anti-tank missiles. Palestinian terrorists have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.
The aid warehouse break-ins were "a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza," said Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. "People are scared, frustrated, and desperate."
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the crowds broke into four facilities on Saturday. She said the warehouses did not contain any fuel, which has been in critically short supply since Israel cut off all shipments. Israel says Hamas would use it for military purposes and that the terrorist group is hoarding large fuel stocks for itself in the territory. That claim couldn't be independently verified.
One warehouse held 80 tons of food, the UN World Food Program said. It emphasized that at least 40 of its trucks need to cross into Gaza daily just to meet growing food needs.
President Joe Biden in a call with Netanyahu on Sunday "underscored the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza," the US said.
Israeli authorities said they would soon allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
But the head of civil affairs at COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, provided no details on how much aid would be available. Elad Goren also said Israel has opened two water lines in southern Gaza within the past week. The AP could not independently verify that either line was functioning.
Meanwhile, crowded hospitals in Gaza came under growing threat. Residents living near Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, said Israeli airstrikes overnight hit near the complex where tens of thousands of civilians are sheltering. Israel proved over the weekend that Hamas has a secret command post beneath the hospital but has not provided much evidence. Hamas denies the allegations.
Israel ordered the hospital to evacuate more than a week ago, but it and other medical facilities have refused, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.
"Under no circumstances, hospitals should be bombed," the director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Robert Mardini, told CBS' "Face the Nation."
The military escalation has increased domestic pressure on Israel's government to secure the release of 239 hostages seized by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas says it is ready to release all hostages if Israel releases all of the thousands of Palestinians held in its prisons. Desperate family members of the Israeli captives met with Netanyahu on Saturday and expressed support for an exchange. Israel has dismissed the Hamas offer.
"If Hamas does not feel military pressure, nothing will move forward," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told families of the hostages Sunday.
The Israeli military has stopped short of calling its gradually expanding ground operations inside Gaza an all-out invasion. Casualties on both sides are expected to rise sharply as Israeli forces and Palestinian terrorists battle in dense residential areas.
Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the terrorists operate among civilians, putting them in danger.
The fighting has raised concerns that the violence could spread across the region. Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have engaged in daily skirmishes along Israel's northern border. Hagari said Israel on Sunday struck three terrorist cells that fired from Lebanon into Israel and killed terrorists who were trying to enter. Hamas said its forces in Lebanon fired 16 missiles at the Israeli city of Nahariya. Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, said it also fired missiles at several sites.
The Israeli military said early Monday that its aircraft hit military infrastructure in Syria after rockets from there fell in open Israeli territory.
Roughly 250,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes because of violence along the border with Gaza and the northern border with Lebanon, according to the Israeli military.
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