Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite a surge in international anger at Israel’s widening offensive. The attacks killed at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals.
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the U.N.’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.
A truck loaded with humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip makes its way to the Kerem Shalom crossing as border police officers prevent activists from blocking the road in southern Israel, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg) (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday that although the aid had entered Gaza, workers were not able to bring it to distribution points after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks entered Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would move deeper into Gaza for distribution. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its staff had waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid, the release of detainees, and a full withdrawal from Gaza.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has destroyed large swaths of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
