33 trucks with aid enter Gaza amid Israel military offensive; death toll soars to 8,000

More than 30 aid trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies entered Gaza on Sunday, the largest convoy to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory since the war between Israel and Hamas began, but humanitarian workers said the assistance still fell desperately short of needs after thousands of people broke into warehouses to take flour and basic hygiene products. The United Nations humanitarian organisation OCHA said 33 trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies had gone into Gaza on Sunday, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. “This is the largest delivery of humanitarian aid since 21 October, when limited deliveries resumed,” OCHA said in an update on the situation in Gaza sent early Monday. To date, it said, 117 trucks had entered Gaza through the crossing since limited deliveries resumed to the crowded Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people, which is facing a near-total siege and relentless Israeli bombardment. Prior to the siege, some 500 trucks carrying aid and other goods entered Gaza every day. Israel imposed the siege after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 230 hostages, according to Israeli officials. The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, as Israeli tanks and infantry pursued what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war ignited by Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 incursion. The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. With inputs from agencies.