First Supplies Enter Gaza Through Pier Built by U.S. Military
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"Trucks of humanitarian aid began moving ashore into Gaza early Friday through a temporary pier built by the U.S. military, the first supplies of aid to be sent into the enclave by sea in two months, but well short of what humanitarian groups say is needed to meet the staggering levels of hunger and deprivation in Gaza.
A day earlier, the U.S. military said it had anchored the floating pier and causeway to the beach in Gaza, a key step in completing a maritime aid corridor that the Pentagon announced in March. But U.S. officials and international aid groups have said sea shipments can only supplement deliveries through land crossings, not replace them.
No U.S. troops entered Gaza on Friday, the U.S. military said, emphasizing that it was providing only logistical support for delivery of the supplies, which were donated by a number of countries and organizations.
Key Developments
The main United Nations agency that aids Palestinians said that the number of Gazans who have fled from the southern city of Rafah since Israel began its military offensive in the area on May 6 has risen to more than 630,000. Many have been displaced to the central city of Deir al Balah, which the agency, known as UNRWA, said on social media was now “unbearably overcrowded with dire conditions.”
Israeli forces appear to be pushing closer to the center of Rafah, according to satellite imagery, which shows military vehicles and widespread destruction of neighborhoods more than two and a half miles inside Gaza. The imagery also shows Palestinians having fled even from outside of areas of Rafah the Israeli military has said to evacuate.
The Arab League called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to be deployed in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank until a two-state solution could be negotiated. Such a mission is unlikely in the near future because U.N. forces do not enter live battle zones and it would require the authorization of the U.N. Security Council.
Lawyers representing Israel on Friday defended the military operation in Rafah as “limited and localized,” arguing at the United Nations’ top court that the judges should not seek to restrict Israel’s actions in Gaza.
At a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to its ground assault in Rafah.
Israeli forces have advanced into the outskirts of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, over the past week and a half, ordering mass evacuations and intensifying their bombardment ahead of a long-anticipated invasion of the city. More than 630,000 people have fled the area, many of them already displaced from elsewhere in Gaza, according to the United Nations.
FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, on Friday postponed a decision to temporarily suspend Israel over its actions during the conflict in Gaza, and in the West Bank, saying it needed to solicit legal advice before taking up a motion submitted by the Palestinian Football Association.
The motion calling for Israel’s suspension referred to “international law violations committed by the Israeli occupation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza,” and cited violations of FIFA’s human rights and discrimination statutes.
Responding to emotionally charged addresses at FIFA’s annual congress by the head of the Palestinian soccer body, Jibril Rajoub, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, said the urgency of the situation meant he would convene an extraordinary meeting of FIFA’s top board on July 25."
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