Israel sought to push back against its growing isolation over starvation in Gaza on Tuesday by allowing some private businesses to restart importing goods into the enclave, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weighed the next steps in the nearly two-year war against Hamas.
Israel has faced growing international condemnation over conditions in Gaza, where more than one in three people are not eating for days in a row, according to the U.N.’s World Food Program. Many aid agencies and countries, including some of Israel’s traditional allies, blame Israeli policies for the hunger crisis.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have tried to show they are making efforts to allow aid into Gaza, pausing fighting in some areas and designating secure routes for convoys.
On Tuesday, COGAT, the Israeli military agency that regulates the flow of aid, said that it was allowing some private businessmen to deliver goods into Gaza. Israel broadly barred businesses from doing that last year, saying that the trade was propping up Hamas.
At home, Mr. Netanyahu is playing to a different audience. The prime minister’s political survival depends on a coalition stacked with right-wing hard-liners and religious nationalists, some of whom have agitated for Israel to conquer all of Gaza.
But nearly two years after Hamas’s devastating October 2023, attack ignited the war in Gaza, the government has not achieved its stated aims: Destroy Hamas, free all of the hostages seized in the assault, and prevent any future threat to Israel from Gaza.
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The post Israel, Facing Anger Over Starvation in Gaza, Tries to Shift the Focus appeared first on New York Times.
