UN food agency suspends Gaza staff movement after vehicle fired on near Israeli checkpoint

PHOTO CAPTION: Impacts on a World Food Program's (WFP) bullet-proof windows are seen after the WFP said the vehicle came under fire a few meters from an Israeli check point at the Wadi Gaza bridge in Al-Mughraqa, Gaza Strip August 27, 2024. World Food Program/Handout via REUTERS

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.

"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 Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that the incident was under review. "The State of Israel is committed to improve coordination and security with humanitarian organizations to ensure the effective delivery of aid within the Gaza Strip," it said.

There have been previous incidents of aid and humanitarian organizations coming under fire during the war. In April, three Israeli air strikes hit a convoy of aid vehicles travelling through Gaza, killing seven World Central Kitchen staff.

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 latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

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; additional reporting by Emily Rose and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Katharine Jackson and Lincoln Feast.)