At the Kerem Shalom border crossing
Israeli protesters prevent aid deliveries to Gaza
January 28, 2024, 7:40 p.m
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Aid deliveries for the residents of the Gaza Strip only reach those in need through two entrances. One of them is the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Around 200 Israeli demonstrators cut off this route. Some of them are relatives of Hamas hostages.
Israeli protesters have blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. “Around 200 demonstrators” had gathered in the area of the crossing, said Cogat, the Israeli authority for civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories. As a correspondent reported, the demonstrators are refusing aid until all of the hostages kidnapped into the Palestinian territory by the radical Islamic group Hamas and its allies have been released.
The Israeli army declared that the area around the crossing was now a “closed military zone.” Some of the demonstrators are relatives of hostages, the reporter reported, citing the protesters’ statements. “We are not friends with the people of the Gaza Strip, they are our enemies and enemies are not helped,” said protester Batia Cheremberg from Beit Shemesh, more than 100 kilometers away.
There are only two entrances available for aid deliveries to the residents of the Gaza Strip: The Kerem Shalom border crossing leads from the south of Israel into the Palestinian territory, while the Rafah crossing is on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Israelis had already demonstrated at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Thursday and Friday and prevented trucks carrying aid deliveries from entering.
According to Israeli information, the Palestinian organization Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU, killed around 1,140 people and kidnapped around 250 others as hostages in the Gaza Strip in its brutal major attack on Israel on October 7th. Since then, Israel has taken massive military action in the Gaza Strip, with the declared aim of destroying Hamas.