Germany, Chile call on Israel to step up humanitarian aid for Israel

By Oliver Towfigh Nia

BERLIN (AA) - Germany and Chile urged Israel to “significantly” increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to war-stricken Gaza, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday.

“We agree that the people in the Gaza Strip need to be provided with significantly better water and food than is the case today. There are more than 500 trucks needed every day, and Israel has to take care of this,” Scholz told a press conference in Berlin alongside visiting Chilean President Gabriel Boric.

The chancellor’s statements come in the wake of comments by Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who on Friday said on X: “Israel should withhold fuel from Gaza and reduce the humanitarian aid that enters the strip.”

International reports say most of the approximately 2 million people of Gaza are living under famine conditions or on the brink of famine. Since Israel launched its offensive on the Gaza Strip last October, Israel has let in only a trickle of aid supplies to Gaza, a fraction of the amount of aid required to keep the population fed.

Scholz also reiterated his support for the cease-fire proposal of US President Joe Biden, saying it offered “the tangible prospect of an end to the fighting and an end to the war.”

Earlier in the day, Germany reaffirmed the “urgent” need for a cease-fire in war-ravaged Gaza following relentless deadly Israeli attacks over the weekend.

Speaking to the press in Berlin, Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner: “I think the events of the weekend have once again underlined how urgently we need this agreement, how urgently we need a cease-fire, how urgently we need the remaining hostages to be freed and more humanitarian aid in Gaza.” ​​​​​​​

The death toll in Israel’s most recent high-profile military assaults across the Gaza Strip has reportedly surged to 226, with more than 400 wounded, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.

The military’s attacks – some of the worst since last October – by land, sea, and air on Saturday hit Nuseirat and Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, with doctors calling the scenes inside Al-Aqsa Hospital a “complete bloodbath.”

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.​​​​​​​