Gaza aid plan makes faltering start as airstrikes kill dozens

A US-backed foundation tasked with supplying aid to Gaza made a faltering start on Monday, with no clear sign that it had distributed promised supplies, a day after its chief unexpectedly stepped down.

The aid plan, which has been endorsed by Israel but rejected by the UN, is unfolding amid fierce Israeli attacks on the enclave, including on a school building where dozens of Palestinians sheltering inside were killed.

With food still critically short after a nearly three-month blockade, Washington says it is working to restore a ceasefire more than 19 months into the war, but progress is elusive.

A Palestinian official said Hamas had agreed to a US proposal for a truce and the release of 10 Israeli hostages, but an Israeli official dismissed the proposal as unacceptable, denying it was Washington's.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff rejected reports that Hamas had agreed to his proposal, telling Reuters that what he has seen is "completely unacceptable."

Israel has faced a mounting international outcry this month, including from Western allies, as it launched a new offensive in Gaza, already largely destroyed by Israeli bombardment and where the population of 2 million is at risk of famine.

Close ally Germany said Israel's recent attacks in Gaza were inflicting a toll on civilians that could no longer be justified as a fight against Hamas, which ignited the war with its cross-border Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Israeli authorities last week allowed a trickle of aid into the Palestinian enclave for the first time since March. But the few hundred trucks carried only a tiny fraction of the food needed.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which intends to use private contractors working under a broad Israeli security umbrella, said it would begin deliveries on Monday, with the aim of reaching one million Palestinians by the end of the week.

"We plan to scale up rapidly to serve the full population in the weeks ahead," it said in a statement.

Israeli media showed photos of aid pallets lined up in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah alongside empty tables which appeared to be set up to aid distribution. The foundation and the relevant Israeli officials did not answer requests for comment.

Palestinians said they had seen no sign of any aid distribution on Monday by the new company.

The foundation's executive director, Jake Wood, announced his resignation on Sunday, saying it could not adhere "to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence".

The Switzerland-registered foundation has been heavily criticised by the United Nations, whose officials have said the private company's aid distribution plans are insufficient for reaching the more than two million Gazans.

The new operation will rely on four major distribution centres in southern Gaza that will screen families for involvement with Hamas militants, potentially using facial recognition or biometric technology, according to aid officials.

But many details of how the operation will work remain unexplained, and it was not immediately clear whether aid groups that have refused to cooperate with the foundation would still be able to send in trucks.

Hamas condemned the new system, saying it would "replace order with chaos, enforce a policy of engineered starvation of Palestinian civilians, and use food as a weapon during wartime".

Israel says the system is aimed at separating aid from Hamas, which it accuses of stealing and using food to impose control over the population, a charge rejected by Hamas, which says it protects aid convoys from gangs of armed looters.

'NO SECURITY OR SAFETY'

Israeli strikes killed at least 45 people on Monday, local health authorities said.

In Gaza City, medics said, 30 Palestinians, including displaced women and children who were seeking shelter in a school, were killed in an airstrike. Images shared widely on social media showed what appeared to be badly burned bodies being pulled from the rubble.

Israel's military confirmed that it had targeted the school. It said that the building was being used as a centre by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants to plan and organise attacks.

Farah Nussair, who survived the attack, said "just the tired ones" who needed food and water were in the school.

She added, a child in her lap: "We fled to the south, they bombed us in the south. We returned to the north, they bombed us in the north. We came to schools .... There is no security or safety, neither at schools, nor hospitals - not anywhere."

Israel's military said it used precise weapons, surveillance and other steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians. It did not provide evidence that the school was being used by militants.

Another strike on a house in Jabalia, adjacent to Gaza City, killed at least 15 other people, medics said.

Sweden said it would summon Israel's ambassador in Stockholm over the humanitarian aid situation in Gaza.

Israel stepped up military operations in the enclave in early May, saying it is seeking to eliminate Hamas' military and governing capabilities and bring back remaining hostages.

The campaign, which Netanyahu has said will end with Israel in complete control of Gaza, has squeezed the population into an ever-narrowing zone in coastal areas and around the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli campaign, triggered after Hamas-led Islamist militants stormed Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and pushed nearly all of its residents from their homes.

The offensive has killed more than 53,000 people in Gaza, many of them civilians, according to its health authorities.