A first boat loaded with 200 tonnes of food aid was making slow progress towards the Gaza Strip on Thursday as efforts grew to bring more humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel.

The main UN aid agency in Gaza said an Israeli strike a day earlier hit one of its warehouses in the southern city of Rafah, killing an employee, although Israel later said a Hamas militant was killed in the rocket strike.

Donor nations, aid agencies and charities pushed on with efforts to rush food to the territory of 2.4 million people, where famine looms after more than five months of war.

Mediation efforts have so far failed to secure a new truce in the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed again that Israeli forces “will reach every location” in their mission to destroy the Islamist group.

“There is no safe haven for terrorists in Gaza,” Gallant said on a tour of the Hamas-ruled territory, according to a video released by his office.