UNRWA's head calls for temporary truce in besieged north Gaza

The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) called on Tuesday for a temporary truce to allow people to leave areas of northern Gaza as health officials said they were running out of supplies to treat patients injured in a three-week-old Israeli assault.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UNRWA relief agency, said the humanitarian situation had reached a dire point, with bodies abandoned by roadsides or buried under rubble.

"In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die," he said in a statement on X. "They feel deserted, hopeless and alone."

"I am calling for an immediate truce, even if for a few hours, to enable safe humanitarian passage for families who wish to leave the area & reach safer places," he said.

The call came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel for talks in which he urged its leaders to capitalize on the military's killing last week of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by taking steps to end the shattering year-old war. Sinwar was the leader of the Palestinian militant group that runs the Gaza Strip.

Washington has called on Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies into northern Gaza and Israel says aid has been delivered in scores of trucks as well as air drops, but Gaza medics say the aid has not reached them.

Israel's military humanitarian unit, COGAT, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, said on Tuesday that 237 trucks containing humanitarian aid, including food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment from Jordan and the international community, were transferred to the northern Gaza Strip over the past eight days.

The aid was transferred following thorough security checks, the military said. It added that Israel "will continue to act in accordance with international law to facilitate and ease the humanitarian response to the Gaza Strip."

Reuters