UN Food Agency Suspends Staff Movement in Gaza After Vehicle Fired On

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended the movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday 28 August 2024, saying at least ten 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 the evening of Tuesday 27 August 2024. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt.

"Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war, it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances," WFP said.

It said the vehicle was a "few metres" from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that the incident was under review. "The State of Israel is committed to improve coordination and security with humanitarian organizations to ensure the effective delivery of aid within the Gaza Strip," it said.

There have been previous incidents of aid and humanitarian organisations coming under fire during the war. In April, three Israeli air strikes hit a convoy of aid vehicles travelling through Gaza, killing seven World Central Kitchen staff.

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 ten-month-old baby had been paralysed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on 7 October when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid "total lawlessness" in the enclave.