Loading

“Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past times their figures have proven to be generally accurate,” Haq said repeating a statement the UN has made since October.

The World Health Organisation “has a long-standing cooperation with the MoH in Gaza and we can attest that MoH has good capacity in data collection/analysis and its previous reporting has been considered credible,” said WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris.

“Real numbers could be even higher,” she said.

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that dozens of protesters opposed to sending humanitarian aid to Gaza blocked trucks heading towards the territory on Monday, destroying some of the aid.

Videos online showed protesters tearing through boxes of aid and throwing them to the ground at a crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel. The aid trucks originated in Jordan and were making their way towards Gaza.

Israeli police said four people were arrested for obstructing traffic.

Over the past week, activists with the Tzav 9 movement, which reportedly comprises settlers, demobilised reservists and families of some of those taken hostage by Hamas, have blocked trucks that arrived from Jordan bound for Gaza in a number of locations across Israel, snarling traffic in a number of protests. All the trucks eventually reached the Gaza border.

In Hebron in the West Bank, the London Telegraph reported several dozen people, mostly young men, ransacked the trucks, hurling out their contents. In a video, they were seen throwing out bags and spilling sugar on to the road, in another they trampled on food parcels.

This is one of the first documented incidents of protesters destroying aid destined for Gaza. The protesters say they are trying to prevent aid from reaching the militant group Hamas.

Jake Sullivan, the US National security adviser condemned the incident as a “total outrage”. “We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this,” he told reporters at the White House.

COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing was open. But aid groups say the Gaza side of the crossing is inaccessible because of the fighting and that no aid has entered for the last week. Since Israel launched an operation in Rafah, limited aid has entered Gaza.

COGAT said a total of 64 trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, down from more than 250 per day in April.

Reuters, AP