A Palestinian man walk past destroyed buildings in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. AFP
The Israeli army body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, COGAT, claimed the supply of tents to the territory would resume on Sunday. The occupation atmy said it had no comment on when the mass displacement of Palestinians would begin, but Defense Minister Israel Katz said on social media that “we are now in the stage of discussions to finalize the plan to defeat Hamas in Gaza."
Airstrike kills a baby girl and her parents
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed a baby girl and her parents on Saturday, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said. Motasem al-Batta, his wife and the girl were killed in their tent in the crowded Muwasi area.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?" neighbor Fathi Shubeir asked, sweating as temperatures in the shattered territory soared above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius). “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Muwasi is one of the heavily populated areas in Gaza where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel plans to widen the coming military offensive, along with Gaza City and “central camps” — an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij camps in central Gaza.
Elsewhere, an official at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in the Zikim area of northern Gaza, as well as four people killed in shelling.
11 more deaths from starvation
Another 11 starvation-related deaths occurred in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the territory’s Health Ministry said Saturday, with one child among them. That brings hunger-related deaths during the war to 251.
The United Nations is warning that levels of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza are at their highest since the war began, amid Israel’s ongoing restrictions on aid.
Palestinians are forced to drink contaminated water as diseases spread, while some Israeli leaders continue to talk openly about the mass dispalcement of people from Gaza.
A 20-year old Palestinian woman described as being in a “state of severe physical deterioration” died Friday after being transferred from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the hospital said Saturday.
The U.N. and partners say getting food and other aid into the territory of over 2 million people, and then on to distribution points, remains highly challenging with Israeli restrictions and pressure from crowds of hungry Palestinians.
The U.N. human rights office reported that at least 1,760 people were killed while seeking aid between May 27 and Wednesday.
Of those, 766 were killed along supply convoy routes and 994 near the “non-U.N. militarized sites," a reference to the Israeli-U.S. so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Meanwhile, anxious families of Israelis detained in Gaza, called for a “nationwide day of stoppage” in Israel on Sunday to express growing frustration over 22 months of war.
Families of captives fear the coming offensive further endangers the 50 captives remaining.
The families and supporters have pressed the government for a deal to stop the war — a call that some former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs have made as well in recent weeks.
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