Thousands of Gaza babies at risk of dying within hours if Israel doesn’t allow aid: UN

The Israeli siege of Gaza has put thousands of Palestinian babies at risk of dying within hours if adequate aid is not allowed into the enclave, the United Nations warned, citing a worsening food crisis.

After starving Palestinians for over 10 weeks and pushing Gaza to the brink of famine, Israel announced it would permit the entry of "basic aid" to prevent mass starvation, a move that followed mounting international pressure.

However, the UN reported on Tuesday that although Israeli authorities cleared nine aid trucks for entry, only five were actually allowed to deliver supplies inside Gaza.

While Israel claimed 98 aid trucks were permitted to deliver supplies in Gaza, the UN reported that the aid could not be distributed and trucks remained stationed at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric stated that Israeli authorities required the trucks to be offloaded on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, and then reloaded separately after access was secured for humanitarian teams from within Gaza.

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“To be clear, while more supplies have entered Gaza, we have not been able to secure their arrival at our warehouses and distribution points,” he said.

Dujarric also noted that while the UN had secured permission to transport 100 aid trucks into Gaza, the amount remains far from sufficient given the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

As of May 3, at least 57 Palestinians, most of them children, have died from starvation, and more than 9,000 have been hospitalised with acute malnutrition.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 53,573 Palestinians have been killed and 121,688 injured in Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023.