Live, war in Gaza: The UN has begun bringing humanitarian aid into the enclave after more than two and a half months of total blockade

The Hamas-controlled Gaza government's press office confirmed that the equivalent of 87 trucks of aid had entered the Gaza Strip, in a message posted on Telegram overnight Wednesday to Thursday.

Israel announced the entry of 100 trucks of UN humanitarian aid into Gaza on Wednesday, loaded with flour, baby food, and medical supplies, following 93 trucks the day before and around ten on Monday. However, none of the shipments were able to leave the Kerem Shalom transshipment zone in the southern Gaza Strip at first.

Israeli authorities had only allowed the UN teams to "pass through a very congested area, which we do not consider safe and where looting was very likely to occur given the prolonged deprivation" of recent weeks, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, explained earlier.

But for the United Nations, the volume of aid is "a drop in the ocean" of Gazans' needs: before the outbreak of war, in retaliation for Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, some 500 trucks of humanitarian aid entered Gaza every day.

Claiming that it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to force it to release the hostages that the Palestinian movement is still holding, Israel blocked the entry of all goods into the enclave on March 2.

"Following the sirens that sounded recently in several regions in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted," the Israeli army announced on its Telegram account, following a previous interception on Sunday.

Yemen's Houthi rebels regularly target Israeli territory. Backed by Iran, they have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks against the Jewish state since the start of the Gaza war, claiming to be acting in solidarity with the Palestinians. They have also targeted ships they believe to be linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen.

On May 4, a Houthi missile struck the perimeter of Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv for the first time, an attack that led most foreign airlines serving Tel Aviv to suspend their flights. In retaliation for the attacks, the Israeli military has carried out several strikes in recent months against Houthi targets in Yemen, bombing power stations and cement factories.

Mark Carney condemned the shootings fired by Israeli forces during a visit by diplomats, including four Canadians, to the occupied West Bank on Wednesday. "We expect an immediate explanation of what happened. This is completely unacceptable," the Canadian prime minister said at a press conference, adding that his foreign minister, Anita Anand, had summoned the Israeli ambassador to Ottawa to demand answers.

Three days after Israel announced a limited resumption of aid, the UN said it has begun distributing the equivalent of 90 trucks of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, for the first time since the start of the total blockade of the Palestinian territory two and a half months ago.

"On Wednesday, May 21, the United Nations collected approximately 90 truckloads at the Kerem Shalom crossing and shipped them to Gaza," said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, in a statement.

The new US-backed foundation to distribute aid in the starving Gaza Strip after weeks of Israeli blockade said Wednesday it intends to act as a complement to the United Nations. Its work "will complement, not replace, the work of the UN and traditional aid organizations," the Geneva-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said in a statement. The foundation, which has been registered in Geneva since February, intends to begin distributing aid "in the coming days . " "The success of the GHF plan depends on close partnership and collaboration with the UN and traditional aid organizations," it said.

The UN has repeatedly stated that it will not participate in the distribution of aid by this foundation, which was created from scratch, considering that it does not respect the principles of "impartiality, neutrality and independence" .

During a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the incident, which was deplored by the EU, the UN and several European countries . The Israeli army had previously explained that the international delegation had "deviated from the approved route" and that soldiers had "fired warning shots to drive them away."

"I don't want to get ahead of myself (...) but I have a certain level of optimism about the possibility of obtaining decisive results quickly, with the hope of putting an end to this situation and freeing all the hostages," the head of American diplomacy declared before a parliamentary commission.

Marco Rubio acknowledged that he had already made such predictions "at least four times in the last two months, and for one reason or another, at the last minute, it didn't happen."

But, he said, "I don't want to disappoint you again, but I want you to know that efforts are underway to provide more humanitarian assistance and to end the ongoing conflict."

"We entered the refugee camps simultaneously and crushed them," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference, referring to the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams camps, whose populations Israel forced to evacuate in February.

The Lebanese Health Ministry reported three deaths on Wednesday in Israeli strikes in the south of the country, where Israel continues to regularly target Hezbollah despite a ceasefire in effect since November. According to the ministry, "one person was killed in an Israeli enemy drone strike targeting a car in the village of Ain Baal," in the Tyre district.

Other drone attacks killed one person in the village of Yater and another in Aitaroun, two towns close to the Israeli border.

The Israeli army announced that it had "eliminated the terrorist Hussein Nazih Barja," a Hezbollah engineer. in a strike targeting the Tyre region , without specifying the name of the village. It also claimed to have "eliminated a commander" of the Radwan force, Hezbollah's elite military unit, in the town of Yater.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "is alarmed by reports of what the Israeli military has called warning shots at diplomats, including UN staff," his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said.

"These diplomats, including UN personnel, have been fired upon, whether as warning shots or otherwise, which is unacceptable," he added. "It is clear that diplomats doing their job should never be fired upon, or attacked in any way (...) . Any use of force against them is unacceptable," he insisted.

"We call on the Israeli authorities to conduct a thorough investigation, share the findings with us, and take all measures to prevent such an incident from happening again."

"If there is a temporary ceasefire option, to release hostages, we will be ready," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference, his first in five months. He said 20 of the 57 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, are "certainly" alive.

"The entire Gaza Strip will be under the control of the Israeli army" at the end of the major offensive launched on Saturday, he also added. "We must avoid a humanitarian crisis in order to maintain our operational freedom of action," he also declared, as the spread of fighting and restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid after two and a half months of a total blockade have sparked a wave of international condemnation.

"Following alerts in the Lachish region [in southern Israel] , a projectile that crossed the border from the northern Gaza Strip was intercepted by the air force," said a statement from the army, as the Israeli military campaign on the Palestinian enclave intensified since Saturday.

"Following this incident, which calls into question international law, the Israeli ambassador to Portugal has already been summoned," the Portuguese Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that it "strongly condemned" the shooting, adding that a Portuguese national was among the group of foreign diplomats.

In the Netherlands, Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp also reacted to the X, saying: "We condemn the shooting, have sought clarification from the Israeli authorities, and are considering further measures." He added that a Dutch diplomat was part of the delegation.

"Earlier today [Wednesday] , the Israeli army struck and eliminated a commander of Hezbollah's Radwan forces in the Yater region of southern Lebanon," the Israeli army said on Telegram .

The Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour had reported a few hours earlier that an Israeli strike in the same area had killed a man who was using a bulldozer to clear rubble from his house damaged during the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, between September and November 2024.

By midday, the Israeli army had already announced that it had struck the Tyre region and "eliminated" Hussein Nazih Barja, a "Hezbollah engineer responsible for establishing the infrastructure necessary for the production of precision surface-to-surface missiles in the region," according to the Israeli forces' statement .

Despite the ceasefire concluded in November 2024 after an open war with Hezbollah, Israel continues to carry out regular strikes in Lebanon.

Turkey "condemns in the strongest terms" the Israeli shootings, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "This attack must be investigated without delay and the perpetrators must be held accountable," the ministry added, adding that "an employee of the Turkish Consulate General in Jerusalem" was with the group.

Spain will summon the chargé d'affaires of the Israeli embassy in Madrid, due to the lack of an ambassador currently stationed there, to protest Israeli gunfire during a visit by foreign diplomats to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"Faced with the intolerable shootings by the Israeli army during the visit of Spanish, EU and other diplomats, we are summoning the head of the Israeli embassy in Madrid. We demand clarification and that responsibilities be established," said José Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign minister, on X.

Following Belgium, Italy, Spain and France, Ireland condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the warning shots fired at a group of diplomats in the West Bank. "I am shocked and dismayed by reports that the Israeli army fired today near a group of diplomats visiting Jenin, including two Irish diplomats based in Ramallah. (...) This is totally unacceptable and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms," ​​said Simon Harris, the Irish Foreign Minister.

In Germany , the Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement that "the Israeli government must immediately clarify the circumstances and respect the inviolability of diplomats. This is what Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul will also express to his Israeli counterpart."

Egypt also condemned "in the strongest terms" the Israeli shooting at an international delegation of diplomats "visiting Jenin at the invitation of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry ." Egypt "demands that Israel provide all necessary clarifications" on the circumstances of "this incident, which is contrary to all diplomatic norms," ​​the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the Egyptian ambassador to Ramallah was part of the delegation.

Rome and Paris announced that they would summon Israel's ambassadors in response to this "unacceptable" incident.

The number of civilians killed by explosive weapons, particularly in aerial bombardments, increased by 60% in 2024, the Explosive Weapons Observatory warned in its annual report published Wednesday.

At least 32,000 civilians were killed or injured by explosive weapons in 2024, about two-thirds of them in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the Observatory, which brings together dozens of NGOs worldwide and documents the damage caused to cities and populated areas by bombings, drone attacks, antipersonnel mines and cluster bombs.

Other countries where civilians have paid a heavy price include Lebanon, Burma, Syria, Sudan and Ukraine.

These figures, which only include damage verified as being directly linked to explosive weapons, are probably underestimated, partly because they are very difficult to document, and partly because they do not take into account the consequences of the destruction of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, which also cause casualties.

Thus, attacks against health facilities and teams increased by 64% (1,857 incidents), attacks against school infrastructure more than doubled (861 incidents), and attacks against humanitarian aid operations were five times more numerous than in 2023 (1,631 incidents).

In around thirty countries, it was state armed forces that targeted civilian populations and infrastructure, the report also notes, citing in particular the Israeli army, in Gaza, but also in Lebanon.