Guardian: "Israel is becoming pariah nation that 'kills babies as a hobby" [View all]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/20/israel-still-blocking-aid-for-gaza-despite-promise-to-lift-siege-says-un


Israel still blocking aid for Gaza despite promise to lift siege, says UN

Continued restrictions come as opposition leader says Israel is becoming pariah nation that ‘kills babies as a hobby’

Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem
Tue 20 May 2025 14.53 EDT

Two days after Benjamin Netanyahu announced he was lifting the siege of Gaza, Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians, the UN has said, as the leader of the country’s centre-left Democrats party said his country was becoming a pariah nation that “kills babies as a hobby”.

Only five trucks of aid had reached Gaza by Tuesday afternoon and aid workers had not been given permission to distribute even that token shipment, Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) told a Geneva press briefing.

Israeli authorities have approved “around 100” other trucks to enter Gaza but not yet let them cross, he said. Even that shipment would do little to reduce widespread hunger after 11 weeks of near total siege; it is just a fifth of what reached Gaza daily before the war, when people were well fed.

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