A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Israel has paused fighting in major population centers of Gaza for 10 hours a day.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And for the first time, Israeli planes have dropped aid into the enclave. The turnabout comes amid international criticism over starvation in Gaza.
MARTÍNEZ: Israel took a group of journalists into a small sliver of Gaza yesterday. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley was one of them. We reach her now in Tel Aviv. Eleanor, what was it like? What did you see?
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Well, we went in at the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is at the southern end of Israel, near Egypt. We were taken in in the back of military vehicles to a place that had clearly been an entry point for aid, but it was desolate, A - searing heat, desert. We saw no Palestinians or destruction. Just barbed wire fencing, trash strewn everywhere, some abandoned flatbed trucks, stray starving dogs. And I did hear sporadic gunfire and the boom of heavy artillery in the distance. You know, I thought we would see aid trucks coming in, but we didn't. They took us to a massive black asphalt parking lot where pallets of aid were baking in the sun - pasta, oil, flour, toilet paper, baby formula that should have been kept cool - much of it likely spoiled. And they said that was the proof that the U.N. is not doing its job distributing it. And here is Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesperson on the trip.
EYLON LEVY: Israel has called the U.N.'s bluff because here are hundreds and hundreds of pallets of aid that the UN is letting rot in the sun. And instead of taking responsibility for that failure, fessing up, they're blaming Israel and pretending that Israel isn't letting this aid in altogether.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, so the U.N. is being accused of things. How have the aid agencies responded?
BEARDSLEY: Well, yesterday, the U.N. World Food Programme put out a statement and said it's impossible to deliver the aid needed under what it called extremely challenging circumstances that put civilians and aid workers at tremendous risk. And Cindy McCain, who's executive director of the WFP - she told CNN that there were desperate crowds, thousands running at their trucks and being fired upon by Israeli tanks and weapons. But I will say people are also dying from chaos at the food distribution sites. There are looters. People get stabbed, run over by aid trucks. There is so much fear to go get food that some Palestinians say they would prefer to stay home and die from Israeli shelling or starvation.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. What's it look like in Gaza today? What's the situation there?
BEARDSLEY: Well, the situation is extremely dire. It has progressed to this point largely, aid groups say, because Israel completely cut off aid for two months - from March to May - and now it's going to be hard to reverse that. There is world outrage, yet Israel continues to officially deny that there is starvation or that it has contributed to worsening humanitarian conditions.
I want you to listen to Brigadier General Effie Defrin, an Israeli army spokesman who talked to us in Gaza yesterday. He said they're closely monitoring things, and while conditions are hard for Palestinians in Gaza, he claims there's no starvation. Here he is.
EFFIE DEFRIN: We've seen the pictures coming out of Gaza. It's breaking our hearts, but most of it is fake - fake distributed by Hamas. It's a campaign. Unfortunately, some of the Israeli media, including international media, is distributing this information and those false pictures and creating an image of starvation which doesn't exist.
BEARDSLEY: Well, now, he did not single out any media, but NPR has done extensive reporting in Gaza on starvation. And we have seen for ourselves that there is starvation going on in Gaza, and we stand by our reporting. Now, analysts do say Hamas is capitalizing on this surge of international shock and sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza - President Trump even made comments - by hardening its positions. You know, Hamas is saying - no negotiations with a famine going on and genocide, they say. Aid agencies say they welcome Israel opening humanitarian corridors for aid trucks and the pause in fighting, but they say only a total ceasefire will allow the necessary aid to get in.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Thank you very much.
BEARDSLEY: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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