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Israel Cuts Agreed Aid Into Gaza Over Slow Release of Hostage Bodies

Staff Reporter — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:12:56 +0000

GENEVA (KAAB TV) – Israel will only allow half the agreed number of aid trucks into Gaza starting Wednesday, according to a note seen by Reuters and confirmed by the United Nations, in a setback to hopes food and supplies would be quickly ramped up to ease famine in the enclave.

COGAT, the Israeli military arm that oversees aid flows into Gaza, also notified the U.N. that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for specific needs related to humanitarian infrastructure. COGAT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

COGAT blamed Hamas for a slow release of hostage bodies for the decision to limit aid trucks to 300 daily. The Islamist militant group has said locating the bodies is difficult.

“Hamas violated the agreement regarding the release of the bodies of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. As a result, the political leadership has decided to impose a number of sanctions related to the humanitarian agreement that was reached,” read the COGAT note.

So far, Hamas has handed over four coffins of dead hostages, leaving at least 23 presumed dead and one unaccounted for still in Gaza. The group informed mediators it will begin transferring four more bodies to Israel later on Tuesday.

“We have received this communication from the Israeli authorities,” Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told reporters. “We certainly very much hope that the bodies of the hostages are handed over and that the ceasefire continues to be implemented.”

COGAT had said on Friday that it expected about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily during the ceasefire. COGAT told the U.N. that 817 trucks had entered Gaza on Sunday, said Cherevko.

It was not immediately clear how many trucks entered on Monday, deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said.

“Crossings are not open today for the entry of supplies from the Israeli side, but we are collecting supplies from within Gaza today,” Haq said on Tuesday.

Israel requires aid to be offloaded from trucks on the Palestinian side of the border, where it then has to be collected by the U.N. and aid groups already in Gaza.

CROSSINGS NEED TO OPEN, AID AGENCIES SAY

Israel has delayed plans to open the southern Rafah to Egypt, three Israeli officials said earlier on Tuesday.

“We need all crossings open. The longer Rafah stays closed the more the suffering prolongs for people in Gaza, especially those displaced in the South,” UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said.

U.S. President Donald Trump declared an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict on Monday as the last living Israeli hostages were swapped for Palestinian detainees, raising expectations that aid supplies would be rushed into the enclave where a global hunger monitor has warned hundreds of thousands of people face famine.

“We are still witnessing only few trucks coming in, and large crowds approaching these trucks in a way that does absolutely not conform to humanitarian standards,” ICRC spokesperson Christian Cardon told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

The U.N. World Food Programme said on Tuesday that it has brought in 137 trucks since the weekend. Aid agencies are seeking to rapidly scale up supplies to people in Gaza City, where up to 400,000 people have not received assistance for several weeks, according to the WFP.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said it has been able to bring in dozens of trucks with life-saving supplies, such as family tents, plastic tarpaulin sheets, winter clothes and hygiene kits.

The U.N. and aid groups have been able to move more freely across parts of Gaza from which Israeli forces have withdrawn, Haq said.

Throughout the war the U.N. had complained of obstacles to delivering and distributing aid in Gaza, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness.

“This improved access has allowed partners to scale up the response to the most urgent needs,” he said.

AGENCIES FACE ONGOING RESTRICTIONS

Around 50 international aid groups, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, CARE and Oxfam, have still not received clearance for supplies to enter as they face ongoing registration barriers.

“We’re in this limbo … The needs of a population that has experienced famine over a period of months is not going to be met with a few trucks,” Bushra Khalidi, an Oxfam policy adviser said.

COGAT previously said that aid trucks operated by the U.N. and “approved international organizations”, the private sector, and donor countries would be allowed to enter Gaza.

Catholic Relief Services has, however, received permission to bring in supplies with shelter as a priority, Jason Knapp, an official with the organization, told Reuters from Gaza.

US-BACKED AID GROUP PAUSES OPERATIONS

The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it has temporarily paused its operations. It last distributed aid on Friday and has dismantled one of its four distribution sites, said a GHF spokesperson, adding that the site could reopen elsewhere in Gaza.

The GHF says it currently has funding to continue operating until the end of November and that while it would make “tactical adjustments” to its operations, it was still committed to delivering aid to as many people in Gaza as possible.

Israel and the United States wanted the U.N. to work through the GHF, but the U.N. refused, questioning the neutrality of the GHF and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement.

The United Nations human rights office said in July that it had recorded more than 600 deaths of people seeking aid – near GHF sites and U.N. aid convoys. For the past several months U.N. data showed that most of its aid was looted off trucks in Gaza either by hungry people or armed groups.

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UN Human Rights Chief Condemns ‘mass killing’ of Palestinians In Gaza

Staff Reporter — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:05:11 +0000

GENEVA (KAAB TV) – The United Nations human rights chief condemned Israel on Monday for “mass killing” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and “hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid”, saying the country had a case to answer before the International Court of Justice.

Volker Turk, who heads the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR), stopped short of describing the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, as hundreds of U.N. staff had urged him to do.

But in his opening address to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Turk expressed horror at what he called “the open use of genocidal rhetoric” and “disgraceful dehumanization” of Palestinians by senior Israeli officials.

“Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; its infliction of indescribable suffering and wholesale destruction; its hindering of sufficient lifesaving aid and the ensuing starvation of civilians; its killing of journalists; and its commission of war crime upon war crime, are shocking the conscience of the world,” said Turk.

“Israel has a case to answer before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the evidence continues to mount,” Turk said, referring to the ICJ’s ruling in January that Israel had a legal obligation to prevent acts of genocide.

Israel accused Turk of not bothering with “facts and complexities”.

“Instead of addressing the rights of Israelis to live in peace and security, and the extensive measures taken by Israel to alleviate the civilian suffering caused by Hamas in Gaza, the High Commissioner continues to spread libellous rhetoric,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Daniel Meron, said in a statement.

Israel has previously rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to self-defence following the deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed almost 63,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, while a global hunger monitor says part of the territory is experiencing famine.

Turk also addressed worldwide human rights and the international order, saying they were being undermined by “disturbing trends” including the glorification of violence and the retreat of some states from the multilateral system.

“Rules of war are being shredded – with virtually no accountability,” he said.

Turk condemned what he said were widespread violations following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as well as in conflicts in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He described the United States’ withdrawal from international frameworks and institutions including the Paris climate agreement and a UN human rights mechanism as “deeply regrettable”.

The Council is facing growing funding difficulties due to deep donor cuts, scaling back or pausing research into violence by Israeli settlers and a probe into possible war crimes in DRC.

One diplomat told Reuters that states should cut the number of proposals they bring before the council and consider merging them to save costs.

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No Aid Supplies Left and Staff Starving In Gaza, Says Norwegian Refugee Council

Staff Reporter — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 15:41:17 +0000

GENEVA (KAAB TV) – The Norwegian Refugee Council told Reuters on Tuesday its aid stocks are completely depleted in Gaza, with some of its staff now starving, and the organization accused Israel of paralysing its work.

“Our last tent, our last food parcel, our last relief items have been distributed. There is nothing left,” Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the council told Reuters in an interview via video link from Oslo.

The council’s comments echo those made earlier on Tuesday by the head of the Palestinian refugee agency, who said UNRWA’s staff were fainting on the job from hunger and exhaustion.

The NRC says that for the last 145 days, it has not been able to get hundreds of truckloads of tents, water, sanitation, food and education materials into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, and Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It has denied accusations that it is preventing aid from reaching Gaza, and has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing food, which Hamas denies.

“Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting in warehouses or in Egypt or elsewhere, and costing our Western European donors a lot of money, but they are blocked from coming in… That’s why we are so angry. Because our job is to help,” Egeland said.

“Israel is not yielding. They just want to paralyse our work,” he added.

The NRC has 64 Palestinian and two international staff on the ground in Gaza. On Sunday the NRC had to move 33 of its staff out of Deir al Balah following Israeli evacuation warnings.

The NRC said its supplies of safe drinking water are also running out, due to dwindling supplies of fuel to run desalination plants. The water has reached 100,000 people in central and northern parts of Gaza in recent weeks.

An Israeli official told Reuters there is about a half a million liters of fuel that the U.N. has been given approval to bring in.

“They’re bringing in fuel and collecting, but they can bring in and they can collect more, and we are having discussions with them,” the official said.

The official also said that there are about 700 trucks of unpacked aid on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing which have not been distributed.

(Reuters).

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