UN food agency suspends staff movements in Gaza after vehicle shot at | WIBQ The Talk Station

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended the movement of its staff in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets hit one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.

The WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armored vehicles “received multiple permissions from the Israeli authorities” to approach the Wadi Gaza Bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. One of the vehicles was hit by bullets, but no one inside was injured.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.

“Although this was not the first security incident during the war, it is the first time that a WFP vehicle was directly fired upon near a checkpoint despite the necessary permits having been obtained,” the WFP said.

It was said that the vehicle was “a few meters” from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Wednesday that aid efforts in the Gaza Strip were “severely hampered by hostilities, insecurity and mass evacuation orders that are affecting humanitarian transport routes and facilities.”

The UN Security Council is meeting on Thursday at the request of Britain and Switzerland to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The British UN mission wrote on X: “The UN has warned that aid operations and staff in Gaza are at risk, at a time when a vaccination campaign is urgently needed to stop a polio outbreak.”

The UN is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, a ten-month-old baby there has been paralyzed by the polio virus type 2. It is the first such case in the area in 25 years.

The current war in the Palestinian enclave began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen entered Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 hostages, according to Israeli sources.

Since then, the Israeli military has razed large parts of the Palestinian enclave and displaced almost the entire population of 2.3 million from their homes. According to Palestinian health authorities, this has caused deadly hunger and disease and left at least 40,000 people dead.

The UN has long complained that there are difficulties in getting aid to Gaza during the war and distributing it in the face of “total lawlessness” in the enclave.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Katharine Jackson)