An Israeli military strike targeting a nearby building destroyed a warehouse storing nutritional supplies for malnourished children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, Medical Aid for Palestinians said on Tuesday. The warehouse belonged to Ard El Insan, a local humanitarian organisation working with MAP to support about 60 medical points serving up to 100 women and children daily. The blast didn’t just hit a building. It buried food and medical supplies under rubble and turned them into waste.
The State’s Reach Hits the Warehouse
The overnight explosion collapsed large sections of the building, including the roof and walls, damaging the entire stock and rendering it unfit for human consumption. Sahar Salem, AEI’s project coordinator, said: “Losing these quantities in their entirety is a major blow to our work and will undoubtedly affect our ability to reach the children and women who need these services, particularly given the conditions they continue to face in the aftermath of starvation.” She added that conditions in Gaza remain challenging despite the so-called “ceasefire” agreed in October. The language of ceasefire sits there, neat and official, while the warehouse is reduced to rubble and the people it served are left with less.
The article’s facts point to a familiar machinery: armed force on one side, aid logistics on the other, and civilians trapped between them. Ard El Insan and Medical Aid for Palestinians were trying to keep 60 medical points supplied for up to 100 women and children a day. The strike didn’t target a military depot in the account provided. It destroyed nutritional supplies for people already described as malnourished.
Cairo Talks Peace, Counts the Damage
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt faces a region erupting in crisis as Cairo works to mediate between the US and Iran, contain the war in Gaza and protect its share of the Nile waters. He said: “We are living in a very, very volatile region. It is unpredictable.” He described the situation as a “deadlock” and said there is “no peace, no war for the time being.” That’s the diplomatic version of a system stuck in place: armed states, stalled talks, and ordinary people paying the bill.
Abdelatty said a framework agreement signed by the US and Iran in June, aimed at providing impetus for talks to end the war between them, collapsed last month. He said the agreement was meant to lead to sanctions relief and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but neither has emerged. He said Iran had assured him that it was “ready and committed” to the framework agreement, but added that, in his view, negotiations were out of the hands of diplomats and were being handled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “But we have to continue contacting our counterparts to push for peaceful solutions,” he said. The peace process, such as it is, remains a conversation among state organs and armed institutions.
He said the goal was to develop the framework into a final peace agreement that would resolve all contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions imposed by the US, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and a permanent ceasefire. The list is long. The results are short.
Aid Promises, Security Logic, and Winter
Abdelatty said mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey had managed to gather all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, in Cairo and secure an agreement on the next steps toward implementing a US-brokered peace plan in Gaza. “Hamas and the other Palestinian factions agreed to hand over all heavy and light weapons, and to move forward with the Palestinian National Committee taking over Gaza for a temporary period,” he said. He added that the first phase of the peace plan has yet to be implemented in full, including the entry to Gaza of 600 aid lorries a day and the start of efforts to rebuild hospitals.
With winter approaching, Abdelatty warned that “people cannot sustain these very harsh conditions.” He said: “The Israelis are not allowing caravans to enter. They are not even allowing tents to enter.” The statement lands hard because it’s about the basics: shelter, transport, and the right to survive the weather. Instead, access itself becomes a weapon.
He also outlined a push within the Arab League for a collective security arrangement based on Palestinian statehood, respect for sovereignty and rejection of non-state actors. “Whenever you have non-state actors competing with national authorities, then you will have a problem,” he said, citing Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. That’s the state speaking in its own grammar, treating authority as the cure for violence while leaving the violence of authority untouched.
Abdelatty said Egypt continues to struggle with growing numbers of refugees. He said that of the 10 million refugees currently in the country, 5.5 million are from Sudan and 1.5 million are from Syria. He said: “We will not allow Sudan to be divided, because if this happened, it would be divided into three or four Sudans, and that’s not an option for us.” Cairo is working with the African Union and the Arab League to advocate for a humanitarian truce and a Sudanese-led political process, he added.
He also said water security is the most pressing issue facing Egypt. Egypt depends on the Nile for almost all of its freshwater and has for years been locked in a dispute with Ethiopia over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which was completed last year. Cairo says the dam, and three others proposed by Addis Ababa, could cause catastrophic drought in Egypt. Egypt receives 55.5 billion of the 1,600 billion cubic metres of rain that falls in the Nile basin each year. Abdelatty said Ethiopia has 900 billion cubic metres of rain a year, and that Egypt is getting 3 per cent of the total water coming to the region. Egypt’s annual water demand is about 94 billion cubic metres, meaning the Nile currently covers only 60 per cent of the total. The shortfall is made up through recycling, but with the country’s population growing by 2.5 million people a year, pressure is mounting on Cairo.
After a 13-year stalemate in negotiations with Ethiopia, Abdelatty said Egypt reserved the right to act. “If any harm happened that could interrupt the flow of water, we have the right to defend ourselves in accordance with international law,” he said, quoting Article 51 of the UN Charter. He recalled that in February 2020, Egypt, Ethiopia and the US signed an agreement in Washington, but said: “Unfortunately, the other side backed off.” Ethiopia has accused Egypt of exaggerating the threat posed by the dam and has described GERD as a hydroelectric power project that does not use up water, but only stores and releases it to generate energy.
More Borders, More Force
In Syria, Israeli forces advanced into the village of Jumla in the Yarmouk Basin, located in Daraa province, according to Al Jazeera. The network also reported that the Israeli military launched an air strike targeting Kafr Rummana in the Nabatieh district of southern Lebanon, and that reports of Israeli artillery shelling, explosions and strikes in southern Lebanon continued early on Wednesday. Different fronts, same logic. Armed institutions move, civilians absorb the shock.