By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.
WFP said in a statement that a convoy of two armoured vehicles received “multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach” the Wadi Gaza bridge checkpoint on Tuesday evening. Bullets hit one of the vehicles, but no one in it was hurt.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
“Though this is not the first security incident to occur during the war it is the first time that a WFP vehicle has been directly shot at near a checkpoint, despite securing the necessary clearances,” WFP said.
It said the vehicle was a “few metres” from the Israeli checkpoint when it was hit.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Wednesday said aid operations in Gaza were “heavily restricted by hostilities, insecurity, and mass evacuation orders affecting aid transport routes and facilities.”
The U.N. Security Council will meet Thursday, at the request of Britain and Switzerland, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Britain’s U.N. mission posted on X: “The U.N. has warned aid operations and staff in Gaza are at risk, at a time when a vaccine campaign is urgently needed to stop a polio outbreak.”
The U.N. is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the World Health Organization said a 10-month-old baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The current war in the Palestinian enclave began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military has leveled swathes of the Palestinian enclave, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing at least 40,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The U.N. has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza during the war and distributing it amid “total lawlessness” in the enclave.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Katharine Jackson)
