Aid Enters Gaza Through Israel's Kerem Shalom Crossing for 1st Time in War

A humanitarian aid truck is inspected at the Kerem Shalom crossing, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt in this still image taken from video released December 12, 2023. COGAT via X/Handout via REUTERS
A humanitarian aid truck is inspected at the Kerem Shalom crossing, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt in this still image taken from video released December 12, 2023. COGAT via X/Handout via REUTERS
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Aid Enters Gaza Through Israel's Kerem Shalom Crossing for 1st Time in War

A humanitarian aid truck is inspected at the Kerem Shalom crossing, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt in this still image taken from video released December 12, 2023. COGAT via X/Handout via REUTERS
A humanitarian aid truck is inspected at the Kerem Shalom crossing, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt in this still image taken from video released December 12, 2023. COGAT via X/Handout via REUTERS

The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened on Sunday for aid trucks for the first time since the outbreak of the war, officials said, a move intended to double the amount of food and medicine reaching the enclave.
The crossing had been closed after an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and aid was being delivered solely through Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt, which Israel said could only accommodate the entry of 100 trucks per day.
Two sources in the Egypt Red Crescent told Reuters that trucks were starting to enter on Sunday through the Kerem Shalom crossing on their way into Gaza. One said there were 79 trucks.
Kerem Shalom, on the border of Egypt, Israel and Gaza, is one of the main transit points for goods in and out of Gaza, allowing much faster transit than the Rafah passenger crossing a few kilometers away.
Israel approved the entry of aid last week.
"Starting today (Dec.17), UN aid trucks will undergo security checks and be transferred directly to Gaza via Kerem Shalom, to abide by our agreement with the US," COGAT, the branch of military which coordinated humanitarian aid with the Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
The prime minister's office has previously said this would allow Israel to maintain its commitments to permit the entry of 200 trucks of aid per day, agreed upon in a hostage deal brokered and implemented last month.
Asked if aid had crossed into Gaza, an Israeli official said yes.
Israel had already agreed to allow trucks to be inspected at Kerem Shalom but the trucks had previously been obliged to return to Rafah, to cross into Gaza from Egypt and aid groups had been calling for them to be allowed in directly.



US Aid Cuts Force UNICEF to Scale Back Lebanon Nutrition Programs

A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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US Aid Cuts Force UNICEF to Scale Back Lebanon Nutrition Programs

A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A medic from the UNICEF carries a cooler box containing polio vaccine arrives at a camp for displaced people in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on February 23, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

US aid cuts have forced the UN children's agency UNICEF to suspend or scale back many programs in Lebanon, with more than half of children under the age of two experiencing severe food poverty in the country's east, an official said on Friday.

"We have been forced to suspend or cut back or drastically reduce many of our programs and that includes nutrition programs," UNICEF's deputy representative in Lebanon, Ettie Higgins, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut.