Grandmother and grandson burn to death in Gaza tent while cooking; Jolie visits Rafah crossing
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A grandmother and her 5-year-old grandson burned to death in Gaza when their tent caught fire while cooking, as thousands of Palestinians battle harrowing winter conditions in makeshift housing.
The nylon tent in Yarmouk caught fire Thursday night while a meal was being cooked, a neighbor said. A hospital official said that two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday in Gaza.
The shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza. But Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli forces, especially along the so-called Yellow Line that delineates areas under Israeli control.
On Friday, American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Wintry weather hits tent cities
Over the past few weeks, cold winter rains have repeatedly lashed the sprawling tent cities, causing flooding, turning Gaza’s dirt roads into mud and causing damaged buildings to collapse.
Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel’s military suggest it hasn’t met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding.
Israel has said throughout the war that Hamas was siphoning off aid supplies, preventing the population in Gaza from receiving them. Last month, the World Food Program said that there have been “notable improvements” in food security in Gaza since the ceasefire.
Palestinians have long called for mobile homes and caravans to be allowed in to protect them against living in impractical and worn out tents.
Actor visits Rafah crossing
Jolie met with members of the Red Crescent on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing and then visited a hospital in the nearby city of Arish to speak with Palestinian patients on Friday, according to Egyptian officials.
Her visit sought to raise support for the displaced and humanitarian workers in the crises in Gaza as well as in Sudan, Jolie’s team said in a statement.
“What needs to happen is clear: the ceasefire must hold, and access must be sustained, safe and urgently scaled up so that aid, fuel and critical medical supplies can move quickly and consistently, at the volume required,” Jolie said about Gaza.
Reopening the crossing, which would allow Palestinians to leave Gaza — especially the ill and wounded who could get specialized care unavailable in the territory — has been contentious. Israel has said that it will only allow Palestinians to exit Gaza, not enter, until militants in Gaza return all the hostages they took in the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war. The remains of one hostage are still in Gaza.
Israel also says Palestinians wanting to leave Gaza will have to get Israeli and Egyptian security approval. Egypt, meanwhile, says it wants the crossing immediately opened in both directions, so Palestinians in Egypt can enter Gaza. That’s a position rooted in Egypt’s vehement opposition to Palestinian refugees permanently resettling in the country.
For more than two decades until 2022, Jolie was a special envoy to the U.N. refugee agency.
Gaza’s humanitarian situation
On Friday, the foreign ministers of Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, expressed concern about Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
The situation has been “compounded by the continued lack of sufficient humanitarian access, acute shortages of essential life-saving supplies, and the slow pace of the entry of essential materials,” according to the joint statement.
The Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,271, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. The Israel-Hamas war began with the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
On Friday, two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli gunfire in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza, a hospital official said. Israel’s military provided no immediate information on the report.
West Bank raids
Meanwhile, Israel continues operating in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday, the Palestinian Prisoners media office said that Israel carried out numerous raids across the territory, including the major cities of Ramallah and Hebron. Nearly 50 people were detained, following the arrest of at least 50 other Palestinians on Thursday, most of those in the Ramallah area.
Israel’s military said there were arrests made of people “involved in terrorist activity.” Last week, a Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman in northern Israel, killing both of them, police said.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says that Israel has arrested 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year, and 21,000 since the war began. The number arrested from Gaza isn’t made public by Israel.
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