Aid trickled into the Gaza Strip on Monday for the first time in more than two months, following widespread condemnation of Israel’s total blockade that has sparked shortages of food and medicine.
Israeli strikes have since killed scores of people in the besieged coastal territory, according to rescuers.
Bassal said eight were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City and 12 in a strike on a house in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Israeli military.
Israel’s security cabinet approved earlier this month a plan to expand the military operation, which one official said would include the “conquest” of Gaza and the displacement of its population.
Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war with Hamas.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Netanyahu also said it was necessary for Israel to prevent a famine in Gaza for “diplomatic reasons”, after his government announced it would allow limited food aid into the territory.
On Friday, President Donald Trump of the United States, Israel’s strongest ally and main arms supplier, acknowledged that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza.
The World Health Organization warned that Gaza’s “two million people are starving”.
They warned of “concrete actions” if Israel did not ease its stepped up offensive. Netanyahu called their joint statement a “huge prize” for Hamas.
A group of 22 countries, including France, Britain, Canada, Japan and Australia said in a joint statement that Gaza’s population “faces starvation” and “must receive the aid they desperately need”.
Qatar has, alongside Egypt and the United States, mediated efforts to end the war.
Israel announced it would let limited aid into Gaza and said the first five trucks entered Monday carrying supplies “including food for babies”.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement that nine trucks had been “cleared to enter... but it is a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Gaza’s health ministry said Monday at least 3,340 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,486.
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