ANKARA – The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Saturday that an additional 53 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
The humanitarian group said the trucks are carrying vital supplies, including medicine and medical supplies, food items, water and relief supplies, reported Anadolu Agency.
It added that the items contribute to meeting the urgent needs of the affected residents in Gaza.
Since the start of the entry of aid trucks into Gaza on Oct 21, a total of 904 aid trucks have been allowed to enter. But the number is far from addressing the needs of those affected by the Israeli onslaught on the enclave.
The Israeli army still bars the entry of fuel into Gaza.
Under the Israeli 16-year blockade on Gaza, 500 trucks of goods, including 45 fuel trucks, used to enter Gaza daily, but that all stopped since the outbreak of the fighting in Gaza on Oct 7. It has left Gaza with a severe shortage of all basic commodities, including fuel that is badly needed for hospitals.
International move to stop war
The Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit meanwhile on Saturday adopted a resolution demanding an immediate cessation of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, while rejecting the war as an act of self-defence or justifying it under any pretext.
The summit assigned the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria and Palestine to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League.
“… to formulate an international move to halt the war in Gaza and to pressure for a real and serious political process to achieve permanent and comprehensive peace in accordance with established international references,” according to the resolution posted by Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
The meeting, held at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Centre in Riyadh, is hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who is also the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia.
The summit also called upon member states of the OIC and the Arab League to exert diplomatic, political, and legal pressures, and take any deterrent actions to halt the crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against humanity.
The leaders called on the United Nations (UN) Security Council to take a decisive and binding decision that imposes a cessation of aggression, and curbs the colonial occupation authority that violates international law, international humanitarian law and international legitimacy resolutions.
“Inaction is considered a complicity that allows Israel to continue its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin,” the resolution read.
The Islamic leaders also called on all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities that are used by their army and terrorist settlers to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their capabilities.
They also urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by Israel in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Al-Quds.
The leaders assigned the general secretariats of the OIC and the Arab League to follow up on the implementation of this investigation and establish two specialised legal monitoring units to document Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip since Oct 7.
The units will then prepare legal proceedings on all violations committed by Israel and submit their report in 15 days after its formation to be presented to the Arab League Council at the level of foreign ministers and the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC.
The summit also condemned the displacement of nearly one and a half million Palestinians from the northern to the southern areas of the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 Protocol.
The leaders called on the parties to the Convention to collectively denounce and reject this action and urged all UN organisations to confront the attempt of the colonial occupation authorities to perpetuate this miserable inhuman reality and stressed the immediate necessity for the return of these displaced individuals to their homes and regions.
“(We) fully and absolutely reject, along with collectively opposing, any attempts at individual or mass forced displacement, deportation, or exile of the Palestinian people whether within the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including Al-Quds (Jerusalem), or outside their territories to any destination, considering it a red line and a war crime,” the resolution read.
More than 11,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children, have been killed as a result of more than a month of relentless Israeli airstrikes and brutal ground operations in Gaza.
Thousands remained unaccounted for, believed to be trapped under the rubble of razed buildings.
According to an international human rights organisation, intense bombing by Israel saw its fighter aircraft drop more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza Strip since October 7, which is equivalent to two nuclear bombs. – Bernama
