Gaza [Palestine], May 12: The Israeli military has killed at least 13 Palestinians, including several children and women, in Gaza as it continues to starve the besieged enclave.
Among the victims since dawn on Sunday were three Palestinians killed in a drone strike on a vehicle and two killed in a bombing near residential towers located west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Another two people were killed in artillery shelling of a home in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north while the body of a man was recovered near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza after Israeli warplanes bombed the area a day earlier. The Israeli military also attacked the Islamic University building in Khan Younis.
The latest killings in the daily Israeli bombardment of Gaza came as the enclave has seen no food, water, medicine or fuel enter the territory for 70 days due to Israel's blockade.
The 2.3 million residents of Gaza are surviving on fast-dwindling supplies and charity kitchens, which have been gradually forced to shut down as they run out of food and hunger spreads.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Sunday that the longer the blockade continues, the more irreversible harm is being done to Palestinians.
"UNRWA has thousands of trucks ready to enter and our teams in Gaza are ready to scale up the delivery," the organisation said.
Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel is committing a "complex crime".
Israel's security cabinet this month approved a plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip and force another mass displacement of Palestinians. Israel has also proposed taking over any future humanitarian aid distribution, which would, it said, involve creating designated military zones.
The Humanitarian Country Team, a forum that includes UN agencies, warned that the plan is dangerous and would "contravene fundamental humanitarian principles and appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic - as part of a military strategy".
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday that the country would accept a new US mechanism that would start delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. The plan has been criticised for bypassing the UN and aid groups with expertise in aid delivery.
Source: Qatar Tribune
