The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday for delivering badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel’s defense minister said the military would send more troops into Rafah, a city along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, as fighting continued in northern Gaza, where Hamas has regrouped. Around 600,000 Palestinians have been driven out of Rafah since the beginning of last week, the U.N. said. In northern Gaza, Israeli evacuation orders have displaced at least 100,000 people so far.
Some 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of the war, with many relocating multiple times.
No food has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for more than a week. Some 1.1 million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, according to the U.N, while a “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north of the territory.