The Gulf Cooperation Council, a bloc of six Arab countries, announced on Tuesday that it will provide $100 million in emergency relief for the Gaza Strip, which is under heavy Israeli bombardment in its conflict with Hamas fighters.
According to a statement on the GCC website, the GCC foreign ministers, who met in an extraordinary session in Muscat, said they will launch “an urgent humanitarian relief operation” with the aid amount.
The meeting came as more than 200 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a hospital compound in Gaza that was sheltering displaced people.
Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza accused Israel of the attack, while Israel blamed a rogue rocket from Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based group that said it was fighting alongside Hamas.
The violence erupted 11 days ago when Hamas militants breached Israel’s heavily fortified border with Gaza, killing, wounding and burning more than 1,400 Israelis in the country’s south. Israel’s air raids in response have claimed the lives of around 3,000 Gazans.
The GCC statement urged “the international community to… demand an immediate halt to all forms of military escalation against defenceless civilians in Gaza” and stressed “the necessity of ensuring the urgent delivery of this aid.”
Gulf countries have been sending aid to Egypt’s El Arish airport, hoping to transport it through the Rafah crossing — the only entry point to Gaza that is not under Israeli control.
On Tuesday, hundreds of trucks loaded with aid headed from El Arish to Rafah, aid officials said.
However, Egypt has closed the Rafah crossing, blocking both aid going in and foreigners trying to escape, as Israel has repeatedly hit the Palestinian side of the crossing.
