A US State Department official said that approximately 140,000 liters of fuel will be allowed to be imported into the Gaza Strip every two days.
Most of these supplies are intended for trucks that deliver humanitarian aid, as well as to support the UN in providing water and sanitation facilities, the British BBC reported, citing an unnamed US official.
Additional fuel reserves should be used to restore mobile and Internet services, which were interrupted due to the lack of fuel. The British newspaper The Guardian reports that in the area, operating telecommunications companies Paltel and Jawwal have confirmed the “partial restoration” of telecommunications services in various parts of Gaza.
The U.S. has put considerable pressure on Israel to enforce the fuel deal, the U.S. official said. He described that the agreement had already been made in principle several weeks ago, but Israel had postponed it for two reasons.
Israeli officials claimed that the fuel in southern Gaza did not actually occur, and the second reason was that they wanted to wait to see if they could negotiate a deal on the hostages first.
The fuel ration will be distributed to civilians in the southern Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing through the United Nations, provided it does not reach Hamas fighters.
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In addition to the ground operation that Israel is conducting in the Gaza Strip, there is also an underground war going on. The sophisticated network of Hamas tunnels presents a challenge for the Israeli army, but it overcomes it with the help of new technologies.
The fuel should provide “minimal” support to water, sewage and sanitation systems to prevent outbreaks of epidemics that could spread in the area, according to an Israeli official.
However, UNRWA said in its latest report that it needs 160,000 liters of fuel every day for basic humanitarian operations – more than double what was agreed, adds the BBC.
Instruction to move
The fighting continues. The Israeli military has issued a new call for Palestinians in the city of Khan Yunis to move away from the line of fire and move west closer to humanitarian aid.
After suppressing Hamas in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the Israelis are probably planning to attack members of Hamas in the south, as Reuters wrote.
“We are asking people to move. I know it’s not easy for many of them, but we don’t want civilians caught in the crossfire,” Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC on Friday.
Such a move could force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south before the Israeli assault on Gaza City to relocate, along with residents of the city of more than 400,000 in Khan Yunis. This can only further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
