UN says no aid yet distributed in Gaza as international pressure on Israel mounts

The UN says no aid has yet been distributed in Gaza despite aid lorries starting to cross the border after an 11-week blockade.

Israeli officials said 93 trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, carrying aid including flour, baby food, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical drugs.

But the UN said, despite trucks reaching the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, no aid has been distributed so far.

Its spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said a team "waited several hours" for Israel to allow them to access the area but "unfortunately, they were not able to bring those supplies into our warehouse".

Israel agreed on Sunday to allow a "basic amount of food" to enter Gaza, where global experts have warned of a looming famine.

But international pressure on Israel has continued to grow.

The UK said it would be suspending trade talks over what it described as Israel's "morally unjustifiable" military escalation in Gaza, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer describing the situation as "intolerable".

Meanwhile, the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc would be reviewing its trade agreement with Israel in light of its actions in Gaza.

Dujarric said the aid operation was made "complex" as Israel required the UN to "offload supplies on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, and reload them separately once they secure our teams' access from inside the Gaza Strip".

He added the arrival of the supplies was a positive development but described it as "a drop in the ocean of what's needed".

UN bodies estimate 600 trucks a day are required to begin tackling Gaza's chronic humanitarian crisis.

Earlier, the UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC thousands of babies could die in Gaza if Israel does not immediately let aid in.

Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, Mr Fletcher said: "There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them."

When pressed on how he had arrived at that figure, he said there were "strong teams on the ground" operating in medical centres and schools - but did not provide further details.

The BBC later asked for clarification on the figure from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), which said: "We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies in to save an estimated 14,000 babies suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Gaza, as the IPC partnership has warned about. We need to get the supplies in as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours."

It highlighted a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) which stated 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition are expected to occur among children aged six to 59 months between April 2025 and March 2026.

The IPC report says this could take place over the course of about a year - not 48 hours.

When pressed on the figures at a news conference, UNOCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said: "For now let me just say that we know for a fact that there are babies who are in urgent life-saving need of these supplements that need to come in because their mothers are unable to feed themselves."

"And if they do not get those, they will be in mortal danger," he said.

Last week, the Hamas-run health ministry reported 57 children had died from the effects of malnutrition over the past 11 weeks.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday welcomed Israel's decision to allow some aid into Gaza, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "We are pleased to see that aid is starting to flow in again."

Replying to a Democrat who said the number of aid trucks allowed in was too little, Rubio said: "I understand your point that it's not in sufficient amounts, but we were pleased to see that decision was made."

On Monday, the leaders of the UK, France and Canada issued a statement calling on the Israeli government to "stop its military operations" and "immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza".

As part of its announcement today, the UK also issued sanctions on several prominent Israeli settlers and settler-linked groups.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas's cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 53,475 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,340 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory's health ministry.