GAZA: Plumes of smoke rose Thursday over the northern Gaza Strip where the Zionist military ordered civilians to evacuate, as rescuers said Zionist strikes across the territory killed at least 107 people. The latest evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City and neighboring areas came hours after the United Nations said it had begun distributing around 90 truckloads of aid in Gaza — the first such delivery since the Zionist entity imposed a total blockade on March 2.

The Palestinian health minister said on Thursday that 29 children and elderly people had died from starvation-related deaths in Gaza in recent days and that many thousands more were at risk. “In the last couple of days we lost 29 children,” Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan told reporters, describing them as “starvation-related deaths”. He later clarified that the total included elderly people as well as children.

Asked to react to earlier comments by the UN aid chief to the BBC that 14,000 babies could die without aid, he said: “The number 14,000 is very realistic may be even underestimating (the scale).” Earlier this month, a global hunger monitor said that half a million people in the Gaza Strip face starvation.

Abu Ramadan said that only seven or eight hospitals out of Gaza’s 36 were partially functioning, and that more than 90 percent of medical stocks were now at zero due to the blockade. “My information is that very few shipments went inside Gaza - 90-100 truckloads and in the south and mid zones.” Asked if there are any medical supplies among them, he said: “As far as I know ...it’s only flour for bakeries.”

Under global pressure to lift the blockade and halt a newly expanded offensive, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was open to a “temporary ceasefire”, but reaffirmed the military aimed to bring all of Gaza under its control. In an Arabic-language statement on Thursday, the military said it was acting “with intense force” in 14 areas of the northern Gaza Strip, including parts of Gaza City and the Jabalia refugee camp.

A map posted alongside the warning showed a swath of territory marked in red, with the army ordering civilians to move south. The army issued a similar evacuation call for northern Gaza late Wednesday in what it said was a response to rocket fire. The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million have been displaced at least once during the war.

After the Zionist entity announced it would allow in limited aid, the United Nations “collected around 90 truckloads of goods from the Kerem Shalom crossing and dispatched them into Gaza”, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres. In Gaza, the Hamas government media office reported the arrival of 87 aid trucks, which it said were allocated to international and local organizations to meet “urgent humanitarian needs”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had got one truck of medical supplies through to replenish its field hospital in Rafah, but more was needed. “A trickle of trucks is woefully inadequate. Only the rapid, unimpeded, and sustained flow of aid can begin to address the full scope of needs on the ground,” the organization added in a statement.

Palestinians have been scrambling for basic supplies, with the Zionist blockade leading to critical food and medicine shortages. UN agencies have said that the amount of aid entering Gaza falls far short of what is required to ease the crisis. Umm Talal Al-Masri, 53, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City, described the situation as “unbearable”. Hossam Abu Aida, 38, said: “I am tormented for my children”. “For them, I fear hunger and disease more than I do (Zionist) bombardment,” he told AFP.

AFP footage showed bags of recently delivered flour at a bakery in the central city of Deir el-Balah, where workers and a host of machines began kneading, shaping, baking and packaging stack after stack of pita bread. “Some aid is finally reaching Gazans in desperate need, but it’s moving far too slowly,” said Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program. The amount is still a “tiny drop in the bucket” compared the scale of the crisis, she said.

Bread distribution would start later on Thursday, Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network in Gaza, told Reuters. He said just 90 trucks had got through. “During the ceasefire, 600 trucks used to enter every day, which means that the current quantity is a drop in the ocean, nothing,” he said. Bakeries backed by the WFP would produce the bread and the agency’s staff would hand it out - a more controlled system than previously when bakers sold it directly to the public at a low cost, he added.

AFP footage of northern Gaza showed numerous plumes of smoke rising from the area over the course of the afternoon. In Beit Lahiya on the northern edge of the enclave, a tank shell hit a medicine warehouse inside Al-Awda Hospital and set it ablaze, the health ministry said. Rescue workers had been trying to extinguish the fires for hours, it added. Tanks are stationed outside the hospital, medics say, effectively blocking access to the facility.

The intensified Zionist offensive has drawn criticism, with EU foreign ministers agreeing on Tuesday to review the bloc’s cooperation accord with the Zionist entity. Sweden said it would press the 27-nation European Union to impose sanctions on Zionist ministers, while Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with the Zionist entity. – Agencies