UN agency suspends Gaza movement after vehicle hit by Israeli military bullets
Palestinians gather to receive aid, including food supplies provided by World Food Program (WFP), outside a United Nations distribution center, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Aug 24, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa)
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended the movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday (Aug 28), saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armoured vehicles received "multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach" the Wadi Gaza bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
It said the vehicle was a "few metres" from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday said aid operations in Gaza were "heavily restricted by hostilities, insecurity, and mass evacuation orders affecting aid transport routes and facilities."
The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday, at the request of Britain and Switzerland, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Britain's UN mission posted on X: "The UN has warned aid operations and staff in Gaza are at risk, at a time when a vaccine campaign is urgently needed to stop a polio outbreak."
The UN is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the World Health Organization said a 10-month-old baby had been paralysed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
Since then, Israel's military has levelled swathes of the Palestinian enclave, forcing nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing at least 40,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid "total lawlessness" in the enclave.
