Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Israel could soon allow food and medicine into the blockaded Gaza Strip, the US State Department said on Tuesday, as the UN human rights chief called on the international community to stop the “humanitarian catastrophe” reaching new levels.
US President Donald Trump last week said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow food and medicine into Gaza, where no aid has been delivered since March 2.
“There's a very big need for medicine and food, and we're taking care of it,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters. “So it will not be long, I'm sure.”
Israel has refused to grant access to aid into Gaza since March 2, until Hamas releases all the remaining hostages that were taken on October 7, 2023.
“The United States of course supports the flow of humanitarian aid, with safeguards to ensure assistance is not diverted, looted or misused by terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” Ms Bruce said.
UN rights chief Volker Turk said countries must do more to stop the disaster in Gaza, as the enclave faces a total collapse of critical life-saving support.
“There must be concerted international efforts to stop this humanitarian catastrophe from reaching a new, unseen level,” Mr Turk said in a statement. “Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza".
Also on Tuesday, Amnesty International accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe – claims that Israel dismissed as "blatant lies".
In its annual report, Amnesty said Israel was acting with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".
Israel accused the organisation of spreading Hamas propaganda and insisting that the military did not target civilians.
The International Court of Justice this week heard testimony that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war.
