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    First Sea-Borne Aid Reaches Gaza Amid Fears About Security and Malnutrition

    The 200 tons of food provided by a celebrity chef’s charity arrived as UNICEF said rising numbers of children in Gaza were facing food deprivation.The first shipment of aid to reach Gaza by sea in almost two decades was fully unloaded on Saturday on a makeshift jetty in the Mediterranean, marking a milestone in a venture that Western officials hope will ease the enclave’s worsening food deprivation.The ship, the Open Arms, towed a barge from Cyprus loaded with about 200 tons of rice, flour, lentils and canned tuna, beef and chicken, supplied by the World Central Kitchen charity.José Andrés, the Spanish American chef who founded the World Central Kitchen, said his team would begin dispatching the food by truck, including to Gaza’s north, an area gripped by lawlessness and badly damaged by Israeli airstrikes.But the distribution was set to unfold in the shadow of a series of attacks that have killed or wounded Palestinians scrambling for desperately needed food. United Nations aid groups had to largely suspend deliveries in northern Gaza last month, and its human rights office has documented more than two dozen such attacks.The latest bloodshed took place late Thursday in Gaza City, where at least 20 people died after an aid convoy came under attack. Gazan health officials and the Israeli military traded blame; many details about what had unfolded remained unclear on Saturday.World Central Kitchen offered few details about its distribution plan, even as it was loading a second supply ship in Cyprus. The Israeli military said in a statement that it had deployed naval and ground forces to secure the area where the supplies were unloaded, though it remained unclear who would handle the distribution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Deaths of Children in Gaza Likely to Rise Amid Aid Snarls, U.N. Warns

    Delivering supplies into Gaza, especially the north, has taken on increased urgency as the United Nations has warned that many Gazans are on the edge of famine.Days after an aid delivery in Gaza turned into a deadly disaster, Israel pushed ahead with another convoy bound for northern Gaza on Sunday, a Palestinian businessman involved in the initiative said, as the United Nations warned that deaths of children and infants are likely to “rapidly increase” if food and medical supplies are not delivered immediately.Izzat Aqel, the businessman, said the renewed aid delivery effort on Sunday came after only one of at least 16 trucks carrying supplies to the north a day earlier made it to Gaza City. The rest, he said, had been surrounded by desperate Gazans and emptied in the Nuseirat neighborhood in central Gaza.COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza, said on X on Sunday that 277 trucks entered Gaza, what the agency said was the highest number of trucks to enter the enclave in a single day since the start of the war. It was unclear how many of those trucks reached northern Gaza.Delivering supplies into Gaza, especially the north, has taken on increased urgency in recent days as the United Nations has warned that many Gazans are on the edge of famine.Israeli officials have worked in recent days with multiple Gazan businessmen to organize private aid convoys. But a convoy that arrived in Gaza City before dawn on Thursday ended in devastation. More than 100 Palestinians were killed after many thousands of people massed around trucks laden with food and supplies, Gazan health officials said.Israeli and Palestinian officials and witnesses offered sharply divergent accounts of the chaos. Witnesses described extensive shooting by Israeli forces, and doctors at Gaza hospitals said most of the casualties were from gunfire. The Israeli military said most of the victims were trampled in a crush of people trying to seize the cargo, although Israeli officials acknowledged that troops had opened fire at members of the crowd who, the army said, had approached “in a manner that endangered them.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Israel Helped Organize Convoy That Ended in Disaster

    It was one of four convoys put together by local Palestinian businessmen this week at the behest of Israeli officials, who promised to provide security.The Gaza aid convoy that ended in bloodshed this week was organized by Israel itself as part of a newly hatched partnership with local Palestinian businessmen, according to Israeli officials, Palestinian businessmen and Western diplomats.Israel has been involved in at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza over the past week. It undertook the effort, Israeli officials told two Western diplomats, to fill a void in assistance to northern Gaza, where famine looms as international aid groups have suspended most operations, citing Israeli refusals to greenlight aid trucks and rising lawlessness. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter. Israeli officials reached out to multiple Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize private aid convoys to the north, two of the businessmen said, while Israel would provide security.The United Nations has warned that more than 570,000 Gazans — particularly in northern Gaza — are facing “catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation” after nearly five months of war and an almost complete Israeli blockade of the territory following the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas.Some residents have resorted to raiding the pantries of neighbors who fled their homes, while others have been grinding up animal feed for flour. U.N. aid convoys carrying essential goods to northern Gaza have been looted — either by civilians fearing starvation or organized gangs — amid the anarchy that has followed Israel’s ground invasion.“My family, friends, and neighbors are dying from hunger,” said Jawdat Khoudary, a Palestinian businessman who helped organize some of the trucks involved in the Israeli relief initiative.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More