Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of February 19

Israeli engineering corps is constructing a highway that will be cutting Gaza in half: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haS3EJk4VSg

This plus buffer zones inside Gaza all the way along the Israeli border (and I assume along this highway as well) means that Gaza's territory is going to shrink by even more.

Exclusive: Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals (CNN)

Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on February 5, before ultimately blocking the trucks from progressing to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the verge of famine, according to documents shared exclusively by the UN and CNN’s own analysis.

CNN has seen correspondence between the UN and the Israeli military that show the convoy’s route was agreed upon by both parties prior to the strike. According to an internal incident report compiled by UNRWA, the main UN relief agency in Gaza, which was also seen by CNN, the truck was one of 10 in a convoy sitting stationary at an IDF holding point when it was fired upon.

No one in the convoy was hurt, but much of its contents – mainly wheat flour desperately needed to bake bread – were destroyed. Tracing the strike offers a window into the major challenges that humanitarian efforts face in getting aid to Gaza’s more than 2 million people – nearly 85% of whom are internally displaced – amid Israel’s nearly five-month bombardment of the strip.

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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not responded to CNN’s repeated requests for comment on the strike. The IDF said on February 5 that it was looking into the incident.

It is one of multiple incidents where aid convoys, as well as warehouses storing aid, have been hit since the war began.

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In the wake of the strike on February 5, UNRWA decided to stop sending convoys to northern Gaza. The last time the agency was able to deliver food north of Wadi Gaza – a strip of wetlands that bisects the enclave – was on January 23. The UN estimates that 300,000 people are still living in northern Gaza, with very little assistance. Acute malnutrition has already been identified in 16.2% of children there, above the threshold considered critical, according to the UN.

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In a statement to CNN, the US State Department called the February 5 strike on the convoy “unacceptable,” and said that humanitarian assistance needed to be able to reach civilians. “In every conversation we are having with the Government of Israel, we raise the absolute need for humanitarian workers to be able to safely distribute assistance and for civilians to be able to access assistance, and for Israel to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians,” the spokesperson said.

Half of UNRWA’s aid mission requests to northern Gaza have been rejected since the start of the year, according to the agency. Severe delays make other journeys that are permitted no longer viable.

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Aid missions are being further complicated by several other factors – from UNRWA’s impending loss of funding, to the Israeli military’s looming offensive in Rafah and reports of harassment of humanitarian workers.

UNRWA, the largest aid agency on the ground in Gaza, has been facilitating much-needed aid deliveries into Gaza from Israel and Egypt. Their operations have been under pressure in the wake of accusations that emerged in late January from Israeli intelligence that 12 of UNRWA’s staff were involved in the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on October 7.

The agency terminated their contracts and launched an investigation. But the accusation still prompted multiple UN member states to withdraw funding and as of February 12, UNRWA had lost 72% of the required $1.2 billion it needs to cover humanitarian missions until the end of March.

Israel’s economy shrank at 20% rate after outbreak of war (Financial Times)

GDP declined by an annualised 19.4 per cent compared with the third quarter. On a pure quarter-by-quarter basis, the economy contracted 5.2 per cent compared with the previous three months.

The sharp drop was caused in part by the call-up of 300,000 reservists, who had to leave behind their workplaces and businesses to embark on months of army service, the Central Bureau of Statistics said.

Other factors to hit the economy included the government’s sponsorship of housing for more than 120,000 Israelis evacuated from the northern and southern border areas of the country.

Following the October 7 attack, Israel also imposed tough restrictions on the movement of Palestinian workers from the West Bank into the country. The move hit the construction sector, causing labour shortages that became an additional drag on economic growth, the bureau said.

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The war has triggered a steep increase in government spending, which rose 88 per cent in the three months after the outbreak of war compared with the preceding quarter. Consumers, meanwhile, were spending 27 per cent less.
Imports of goods and services fell 42 per cent, the report said, while exports dropped 18 per cent.

Earlier this month, the rating agency Moody’s lowered Israel’s sovereign rating from A1 to A2 because of concerns about the war in Gaza, in particular over how long the conflict could last and its broader impact on the country’s economy.