Middle East CrisisIsrael Says It Will Reduce Fighting in Part of Southern Gaza
The announcement came seemingly out of the blue on Sunday when it was first publicized via the Israeli military’s English and Arabic-language channels: The military would “pause” its fighting during daytime hours along an important humanitarian aid corridor in southern Gaza until further notice.
Amid some immediate confusion over the scope of the pause, a clarification swiftly followed, this time in Hebrew and seemingly for domestic consumption. The change did not mean a cessation of fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, that statement said, adding that the campaign in the southernmost city of Rafah was continuing. Military officials said the daily pauses were meant only to facilitate the increased distribution of food aid in Gaza, where international organizations have issued dire warnings about hunger.
The strange choreography of the messaging became stranger still when the government suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only learned of the military’s plan from news reports and signaled his disapproval.
But analysts said it was likely that the prime minister was aware of the plan and that each announcement was tailored to different audiences. The whipsaw statements appeared to reflect the competing pressures facing Mr. Netanyahu, as he juggles demands from the Biden administration and elsewhere around the globe with those of his own hawkish government. His far-right coalition partners oppose any concessions in Gaza, and he relies on their support to stay in power.
The new policy surrounding the humanitarian corridor — where the military said it would pause fighting from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. daily — went into effect on Saturday, according to military officials. But Mr. Netanyahu insinuated that he did not learn of the plans until Sunday morning.
“It’s classic Bibi,” said Amos Harel, the military affairs analyst for the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname. Like other experts, he said the announcement was unlikely to have been a complete surprise to him, even if the military commanders did not update him on the exact timing of what they called a tactical change.
“He has a mask for every occasion,” Mr. Harel said in an interview. “For the Americans, he needs to show he is doing more to get aid in. For the Israeli audience he can say ‘I didn’t know’ and go for plausible deniability.”
A statement issued on Sunday by an anonymous government official, whose name and office could not be publicized, as per protocol, said that when Mr. Netanyahu learned about the humanitarian pause, he found it unacceptable. The prime minister was later assured, the statement added, that there was no change in the military’s plans regarding the fighting in Rafah, the southern Gaza city near the corridor that has been the focus of recent operations.
Shani Sasson, a spokeswoman for Cogat, the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories and that liaises with international organizations, said the move was meant to help clear a backlog of more than 1,000 trucks that had already been inspected by Israel and were waiting on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom crossing.
“We are asking the aid organizations to come and pick up the aid and distribute it,” Ms. Sasson said. “It’s up to them.”
The military’s move coincided with the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and uncertainty over the fate of an Israeli proposal for a cease-fire with Hamas, which includes an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Officials said Hamas had demanded some unworkable changes to the proposal that was backed by the Biden administration and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
The “tactical pause” also comes as Israel awaits another international report expected this month regarding food insecurity in Gaza. A previous report in March, warned that half the population of Gaza was facing “catastrophic” food insecurity and imminent famine.
Mr. Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, also have the threat of arrest, on accusations of war crimes, from the International Criminal Court in The Hague hanging over them. They have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
Israel has portrayed Rafah as a last bastion of Hamas’s organized battalions and the military operation there as the final major step in the war. The military has now gained control of the corridor along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, long a main conduit for weapons smuggling into the territory.
Israelis are increasingly questioning where the war goes from here and when it will end. The cost for both sides is rising all the time. At least 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in combat this weekend and an 11th died of wounds sustained days earlier.
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted the war and in all, more than 300 Israeli soldiers have since been killed in combat.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 this weekend, Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief and now a centrist politician who quit the emergency wartime government along with his party leader, Benny Gantz, last week, accused Mr. Netanyahu of putting his political needs before those of national security.
Mr. Eisenkot said that the influence of one of Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, was a constant presence over the discussions in the war cabinet, even though Mr. Ben-Gvir is not a member of that decision-making body.
Mr. Ben-Gvir and the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have openly criticized the military leadership during the war and have also vowed to bring down Mr. Netanyahu’s government if he agrees to a cease-fire deal before Hamas is fully destroyed — a goal that many experts say is unattainable.
Predictably, Mr. Ben-Gvir was quick on Sunday to attack the military’s announcement of the humanitarian pause in a social media post, denouncing it as a “crazy and delusional approach” and adding that “the evil fool” who decided on it “must not continue in his position.”
Mr. Ben-Gvir did not specify who he meant.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
The Israeli military said on Sunday it would suspend daytime military operations near a border crossing in southern Gaza every day “until further notice” in order to allow more humanitarian aid to enter the enclave, as aid groups make increasingly urgent warnings about the lack of food and other basic goods.
Israel said that it would halt military activity daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. along the route that connects the Kerem Shalom crossing to Salah al-Din Road in Gaza and then runs north. Kerem Shalom sits at the intersection of Gaza, Egypt and Israel, which controls the gateway.
The Israeli military later clarified that the pause would be limited and that there would be “no cessation of fighting” in southern Gaza overall. “The fighting in Rafah is continuing,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said on social media.
It was not immediately clear what effect the pause would have on the volume of aid entering Gaza. To coincide with the pause, Israel said on Sunday that more than 1,000 aid trucks inspected by the Israeli authorities had crossed into Gaza from Kerem Shalom and were waiting to be unloaded. Distributing that aid, Israeli officials said, would be contingent on relief agencies.
A spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office, Jens Laerke, said that he welcomed the Israeli announcement, but that it “has yet to translate to more aid reaching people in need.” He called on Israel to take additional steps, including expediting the passage of aid trucks through checkpoints in Gaza and allowing in more fuel and communications equipment to speed relief deliveries.
“We hope this leads to further concrete measures by Israel to address longstanding issues preventing a meaningful humanitarian response in Gaza,” Mr. Laerke said. “The U.N. and our humanitarian partners are ready to engage with all parties to ensure lifesaving assistance reaches those in need across Gaza.”
The announcement of the pause, made on the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, comes amid a flurry of negotiations, mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. One sticking point in those talks is a disagreement between Hamas and Israel over the permanence of any cessation of hostilities. Israel maintains that it will continue fighting Hamas.
But by initiating the limited pause, Israel appeared to be responding to months of international criticism that its military campaign has left Gazans desperately short of food, water, medicines, fuel and other supplies.
The United Nations has said that hunger is widespread in the enclave and that more than 50,000 children need to be treated for acute malnutrition. Aid groups have said that the Israeli military’s activity in southern Gaza has made distributing aid nearly impossible.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories and that liaises with international relief organizations, said the passage of aid trucks was now being prioritized to get more food into Gaza.
Last month, Israeli troops moved on the southern Gaza city of Rafah and closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing after Hamas launched a deadly rocket attack on Israeli forces in the area. Aid shipments into the territory — already well below levels needed to sustain Gazans — plummeted further. Within days, Israel reopened the crossing at Kerem Shalom, but another border gate at Rafah, on the Egyptian border, remains closed.
Data compiled by the United Nations shows that the number of aid trucks entering southern Gaza remains well below the levels before the incursion in Rafah.
Israel has described Rafah as the last holdout for Hamas and ordered hundreds of thousands of people who had sought shelter there to flee for what it has described as humanitarian “safe zones” that it would not attack. But officials in Gaza have reported civilian deaths even in some of those zones.
It remains clear, aid groups say, that Gazans need much more assistance.
“Hospitals in ruin, restrictions on humanitarian access and scarce medical supplies and fuel across #Gaza are pushing the health situation beyond crisis level,” the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on social media on Saturday.
Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
Israel’s decision to halt daytime military operations along a key aid route into southern Gaza could help alleviate a severe hunger crisis, relief groups said on Sunday, but they cautioned that the effects would be limited unless security improved, more aid routes opened and hostilities with Hamas ended altogether.
Some aid groups expressed skepticism that the Israeli military’s action would be transformative, noting that it had made similar assurances in the past about increasing the flow of aid. In fact, humanitarian officials said, the amount of aid entering Gaza has declined sharply in recent weeks even as the United Nations has said much more is needed.
“We welcome this announcement,” Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office said on Sunday. “Of course, this has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need. We hope this leads to further concrete measures by Israel to address longstanding issues preventing a meaningful humanitarian response in Gaza.”
Israel’s military said that it would pause operations along a route that runs from the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southeastern Gaza to the Salah al-Din Road that goes north. But aid groups said they had not received exact details about the route and how far it would extend. And the immediate criticism of the announcement by some Israeli politicians, relief groups said, raised the question of whether the pause would be sustained.
Mr. Laerke said it was crucial that aid groups could deliver aid safely throughout Gaza to relieve the “catastrophic hunger” that is widespread there. He pointed to Israeli military checkpoints within Gaza where aid trucks are often held up for hours, or passage is denied altogether. He also said that Israeli authorities had restricted the deliveries of communications and logistics equipment as well as fuel, all of which are vital for humanitarian efforts.
Aid groups and U.N. agencies have said for months that restrictions on aid and commercial goods entering Gaza are causing the hunger crisis. The shortage of food has already led to deaths from malnutrition.
Bushra Khalidi, a policy lead at Oxfam, an international aid group working in Gaza, said Sunday’s announcement represented “cosmetic changes” that Israel could cancel over one attack.
“This is not what a famine response looks like,” she said, adding: “We need real commitments for a permanent cease-fire.”
Aid officials point to obstacles that would remain even if Israel does reduce military activity. Little aid has entered Gaza since early May, when a Hamas rocket attack near Kerem Shalom prompted Israel to close that border crossing and to launch an incursion in Rafah, home to a second major crossing that is now closed.
Egypt shuttered its side of the Rafah crossing after Israel took control of the other side, and Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian officials have wrangled over how to reopen it to aid. Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing days later, but far less aid is getting through there than before the offensive, according to U.N. data.
“There’s no mention of improving the quality and volume of aid,” Arwa Mhanna, a senior adviser for the Middle East at the aid group Mercy Corps, said on Sunday in response to the Israeli announcement. “We don’t know what’s the plan for that.”
Even the relatively little aid that is getting in is not being widely distributed, officials said. More than 1,000 trucks are stuck on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to both the Israeli authorities and a U.S. official working on the aid response. The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that fighting in Rafah has made it unsafe for aid agencies to get to the trucks and forced relief groups to spend more time coordinating their movements with the Israeli military.
Once they are able to reach the trucks, aid officials say, drivers and aid workers face a dangerous journey across destroyed roads further into Gaza. Starving civilians have looted the trucks and attacked drivers, creating conditions so bad that some aid officials have drawn comparisons to a “Mad Max” movie.
The closure of the Rafah crossing has slashed the amount of fuel available to power hospitals, water infrastructure and aid vehicles. One group, the International Rescue Committee, has been delivering drinking water using donkey carts. The group’s vice president for emergencies, Bob Kitchen, echoed other relief officials, saying that what is really needed in Gaza is a cease-fire.
“We need the killing to stop,” he said.
The crew of a merchant vessel that was attacked by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea last week has been airlifted to shore, though one crew member remains missing, the U.S. Navy said on Sunday.
The Tutor, a Greek-owned bulk carrier, was struck on Wednesday by the Houthis, who have for months targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in what they have called a campaign to pressure Israel to end its siege on Gaza.
The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said that the attack by an “uncrewed surface vessel” from the Houthis had caused “severe flooding and damage” to the engine room of the Tutor.
It added that members of the Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group airlifted the sailors to a Navy cruiser, then to the Eisenhower for medical checks before they were flown ashore on Saturday.
Most of the Tutor’s crew members, including the missing sailor, are from the Philippines, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency. The agency reported on Sunday that the rescued crew members had been taken to the port of Manama, Bahrain, and were expected to arrive in Manila by plane on Monday.
The crew of another commercial ship, the Verbena, was evacuated after it was hit by the Houthis near the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, leaving the ship “on fire and sinking,” the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Saturday. Another cargo ship in the area had “recovered the mariners and is transporting them to safety,” U.S. Central Command said.
The Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping — in a key corridor to and from the Suez Canal — have disrupted global maritime trade since November. In response, the U.S. and Britain have been carrying out airstrikes on Yemen, and the U.S. Central Command said earlier this month that its forces had destroyed several Houthi drones and antiship missiles.
After eight devastating months of war, Muslims in Gaza on Sunday will mark a somber Eid al-Adha, a major religious holiday usually celebrated by sharing meat among friends, family and the needy.
Adha means sacrifice, and the ritual killing of a sheep, goat or cow on the day is meant as a symbol of the prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. But this year, nearly everyone in Gaza is needy. Hunger has gripped the Palestinian territory as Israel has unleashed an eight-month military offensive on the enclave and severely restricted what is allowed to enter, including humanitarian aid.
Many do not feel like celebrating.
“There won’t be any Eid, nor any Eid atmosphere,” said Zaina Kamuni, who was living with her family in a tent on a sandy expanse of land in southern Gaza called Al-Mawasi. “I haven’t eaten any meat in five months.”
“It will be a day like any other day, just like Eid al-Fitr,” she added, referring to the other major Muslim holiday, which Gazans observed more than two months ago under the same conditions.
Since the war began on Oct. 7 after the Hamas-led attack on Israel that Israel estimates killed 1,200 people, Gazans have endured intense regular bombardments and deprivation. More than 37,000 people have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, and hunger is rampant.
“With continued restrictions to humanitarian access, people in #Gaza continue to face desperate levels of hunger,” UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, posted on social media on Saturday, adding that more than 50,000 children require treatment for acute malnutrition.
On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a daily pause in military operations near a southern Gaza border crossing in order to allow more aid to enter the territory, although it was not immediately clear whether many more supplies would get in. The U.N. World Food Program warned this past week that southern Gaza could soon see the catastrophic levels of hunger previously experienced by Gazans in the north of the territory.
Many Gazans have clung to hope amid reports of negotiations and proposed cease-fire deals between Israel and Hamas. But the passing of each holiday — including Christmas and Easter for Gaza’s small Christian population — is a reminder of how entrenched this war has become.
In past years, Adnan Abdul Aziz, 53, who is living in Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, had been able to buy a lamb and slaughter it on Eid. On the morning of Eid, he and his family would eat lamb liver for breakfast and for lunch would make a traditional Palestinian dish with the meat. They would give the rest to family and friends and to the needy.
Now, because of the lack of electricity and higher costs at markets, Mr. Abdul Aziz must buy food daily, depending on what is available and what he can afford. But the feasting is not the only thing he will miss this year, he said.
“There are the family visits and gatherings, giving money to the kids, buying new clothes for everyone, making sweets, doing Eid prayers,” he said. “None of this is doable this year. Everyone is sad and has lost someone or something.”
Aya Ali Adwan, 26, got engaged to be married before the war began. Her wedding, which had been set for February, was postponed, another celebration disrupted by the conflict.
Originally from northern Gaza, she and her family have been forced to flee eight times during the war. They are now sheltering in a cramped tent in Deir al Balah, where the heat has been approaching 95 degrees Fahrenheit, making the tent unbearably hot.
“My spirits are shattered,” she said. “We should be busy with preparations for Eid, like baking cookies and the usual tasks, such as cleaning the house and buying clothes, like any Palestinian family before Eid. But this year, there is nothing.”
Many relatives who would have visited their home during Eid have been killed in the war, she said.
“Right now, the only thing we need is to feel safe, even though we lack everything,” she said. “The only thing we need is for the war to stop and for us to return to our homes.”
Ameera Harouda and Bilal Shbair contributed reporting.
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed while riding in an armored vehicle in southern Gaza on Saturday, the Israeli military said, as the Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah continued to exact a toll among its troops.
The deaths occurred around 5:15 a.m. as Israeli troops operated in the northwest part of Tel al-Sultan, a neighborhood in western Rafah, the Israeli military said. The eight soldiers — who belonged to the military’s engineering corps — were riding in an armored vehicle when the blast occurred, the military said.
Hamas, the Palestinian armed group, said in a statement that its militants had fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli military vehicles in western Rafah, killing some soldiers. It was not immediately clear whether it was an explosive device that damaged the vehicle or anti-tank missile fire, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, told reporters.
The explosion damaged the vehicle but might have also ignited munitions inside, Israeli military officials said, adding that the blast was severe enough to make finding and identifying the bodies difficult.
Israel has fought for more than eight months in Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, which killed roughly 1,200 in Israel — mostly civilians — and took some 250 others hostage. More than 36,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war, according to Palestinian health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hamas has fought a dogged guerrilla war, resisting Israel’s efforts to decisively defeat the organization, take down its leaders and bring back many of those abducted during the surprise Oct. 7 attack. According to the Israeli military, the campaign has killed an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 militants in Gaza. Israeli officials have not provided evidence for the calculation.
More than 300 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza began in late October. At the end of January, about 20 Israeli soldiers were killed as they prepared to demolish buildings inside Gaza near the border with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel publicly mourned the soldiers’ deaths and called for Israel to remain committed to its military’s goals of destroying Hamas, bringing home the hostages and “ensuring Gaza can no longer threaten Israel.”
“There is no substitute for victory,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “Do not let anyone distract you from the simple and clear fact: We must remain dedicated to the war aims, despite the heavy and agonizing price.”
Mr. Netanyahu has been criticized by parts of the Israeli public, the families of hostages held in Gaza and former security officials. Some argue that only a settlement with Hamas will return the remaining 120 living and dead captives; others have argued that his failure to articulate a clear postwar alternative to Hamas has left the country trapped in a holding pattern in Gaza.
Israeli forces rescued four hostages in a rescue operation in central Gaza last weekend that also left scores of Gazans dead, according to local health officials. Admiral Hagari applauded the mission but added, “We must be honest — we cannot bring home everyone in this manner.”
Israeli forces have closed in on Rafah in recent weeks, sweeping along the border area with Egypt in an effort to destroy tunnels they say Hamas has used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip. They have also conducted raids into the city itself. The United Nations estimates that more than one million Palestinians have fled Rafah.
In the northern town of Beit Jann — populated by Arab Israelis who adhere to the Druze faith — residents mourned Waseem Mahmoud, one of the fallen soldiers. The Druze occupy an unusual middle ground in Israel: Arab practitioners of a minority religion who generally serve in Israel’s military and security forces.
The town’s residents had planned to observe Eid al-Adha, a holiday shared by both Muslims and Druze. But all of the public festivities were called off in light of the news, said Nazih Dabour, the town mayor.
“We can’t bury our children and celebrate on the same day,” said Mr. Dabour, who paid the family a condolence call on Saturday. “It’s a huge tragedy for us.”