Hope grows for UN mission to ‘flood’ Gaza with food, despite fears of imminent Rafah invasion

Aid officials called on the Security Council on Friday to step in to stop the carnage in Gaza as the war enters its sixth month amid a man-made famine, Israel’s constant bombardment, targeted killings of aid workers and Palestinians civilians and “zero accountability” for the perpetrators.

Less than a kilometre from Gaza, pallets of food, fuel, water, and medicine are among the hundreds of tonnes of lifesaving aid packed into a long convoy of trucks idling on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, as drivers await Israel’s green light so they can reach 2.3 million besieged Palestinians caught in the crossfire of the ongoing war.

Amid further fighting across Gaza on Thursday, including reports of deadly airstrikes in the Rafah governorate, the UN’s top aid official, Martin Griffiths, echoed widespread international fears about a further escalation of the conflict.