OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Thunder announced Monday that forward/center Chet Holmgren will miss at least eight weeks with a pelvic fracture.
Holmgren sustained a right iliac wing fracture during the first quarter of Sunday night's game against the Golden State Warriors. The team says it expects him to return this season, and an update will be provided in eight to 10 weeks.
It’s a big loss for a team that started the season with seven straight wins and currently is tied for the Western Conference lead with an 8-2 record. Holmgren was runner-up for Rookie of the Year last season and has been one of the league’s most efficient players this season. He is averaging 18.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game.
Holmgren contested a layup by Andrew Wiggins, collided with him and hit the floor hard. He immediately reached for his right hip and stayed down for a while before he was helped off the court. He did not put pressure on his right leg, but he gave a thumbs up as he hobbled off.
The Thunder led 16-12 when Holmgren was taken out and eventually fell behind by 30 late in the third quarter. Oklahoma City made it a game before losing 127-116.
Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said it was difficult to refocus after the injury.
“It’s hard," he said. "Hopefully, he’s OK. It’s part of the game, but it sucks.”
Oklahoma City entered Sunday night leading the league in defensive rating but didn't look like it in the second and third quarters without the team's anchor in the paint. The 7-foot-1 Holmgren is one of the league's top shot blockers, and he is agile enough to defend guards when he has to switch.
“It changed a lot for us defensively, for sure," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You guys can probably tell, he does so much on that end of the floor. He cleans up so many things, deters so many things around the rim when he’s not blocking them (shots).”
Still, the Thunder started the fourth quarter strong, and Oklahoma City trimmed its deficit to six in the closing minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander said there was a lesson to be learned from the second half.
“Especially against good teams, you can’t go down that big," he said. “It’s almost impossible to come back. You’ve got to be better on both ends of the ball for longer periods of time.”
The Thunder, one of the deepest teams in the league, are suddenly thin in their frontcourt. Holmgren had moved from forward to center because newly-acquired big man Isaiah Hartenstein was out with a fractured left hand. The Thunder were also missing forward/center Jaylin Williams (right hamstring) and guard/forward Kenrich Williams (right knee).
Oklahoma City hosts the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.
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Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren (7) gives a thumbs-up as he is helped off the court by Thunder forward Jaylin Williams, left, and center Isaiah Hartenstein, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, left, and Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins (22) collide as Wiggins shoots during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. Holmgren was injured on the play and helped off the court. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet Holmgren, center, gives a thumbs-up as he is helped off the court by Thunder forward Jaylin Williams, left, and center Isaiah Hartenstein, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nate Billings)
JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States said Tuesday it wouldn't punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. But it urged Israel to increase the flow of aid into the besieged territory.
The White House last month gave Israel 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support. As the deadline expired, leading international aid groups said the U.S. had fallen far short, with the humanitarian situation in Gaza the worst it has been since the war erupted.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. State Department said that Israel has made limited progress and that it wouldn't take any punitive action against its close ally. However, it called for more steps.
“We are not giving Israel a pass,” said Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman. “We want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve.”
After 13 months of war, aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza. Almost the entire population of around 2.3 million Palestinians is relying on international aid for survival, and food security experts and rights groups caution that famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza.
“It’s really frustrating because by almost every objective metric, all agencies say that the humanitarian situation has gotten worse in that time frame that the U.S. has specified,” Aseel Baidoun, a senior manager of the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said on Wednesday. “Even though we have provided all the evidence that there is a risk of famine ... still the U.S. miraculously finds Israel not violating the humanitarian aid law.”
Israel, which controls all crossings into Gaza, says it is committed to delivering humanitarian assistance and has scrambled to ramp up aid. It says the U.N. and international aid groups need to do a better job of distributing supplies.
Aid into Gaza is typically measured in terms of truckloads of food and supplies entering the territory. The U.S. has demanded 350 trucks daily.
Israeli government figures show roughly 57 trucks a day entering on average in October and 75 a day in November. The U.N. counts trucks differently and says it has only received 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.
In northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has been carrying out a major offensive over the past month, the figures were even lower. No aid entered the northernmost areas of Gaza – Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – in October, the U.N. says.
Israel says it closed all the Gaza crossings for the Jewish high holidays in October and couldn’t send aid to the north because of the offensive against Hamas fighters.
Over the last two days, the military body handling aid deliveries to Gaza — COGAT — says it has allowed aid trucks to enter the hardest-hit northern areas. But only three of the trucks have made it to their destination successfully, according to the World Food Program.
Aid groups accuse the Israeli army of blocking aid trucks from reaching areas where the fighting is most intense, including northern Gaza, where hunger is most acute.
“There can be aid sitting at the border ready to come in. But if we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it, it’s not possible for us to have it. And it will not reach the people who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA has been the main agency procuring and distributing aid in Gaza, and a feud between Israel and the agency, led Israel to take steps toward banning it last month. Israel says Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA -- a charge the agency denies.
During October, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Israeli authorities rejected roughly 43% of all humanitarian movement requests, and impeded a further 16%.
Israeli authorities have also prohibited some vehicles and goods from entering the enclave, aid groups say, often without explanation. Rachel Morris, of the aid group Mercy Corps, said trucks carrying the group’s tent supplies have been turned away more than five times.
Israel says it denies entry to supplies that could be weaponized by Hamas.
Under intense international pressure, Israel has since taken measures to up aid delivery, with COGAT saying it was allowing trucks into the hard-hit north. On Tuesday, it said had opened a fifth border crossing to increase the flow of aid.
But aid groups say access is still an issue.
The World Food Program said vehicles filled with its supplies were denied access to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya on Tuesday. The day before, the U.N. agency said it received approval from the army to deliver supplies to Beit Hanoun only to be stopped by troops on route in Jabaliya and ordered to offload the stockpile there.
“I witnessed during my visit to Gaza last week the deliberate starvation of almost 2 million civilians, whilst the bombardment continues,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major relief provider. “There is barely any aid crossing into Gaza.”
Also stymying distribution is theft and criminality along aid routes.
Israel accuses UNRWA of failing to pick up hundreds of trucks worth of supplies piling up at the territory’s main southern aid crossing. It says the aid has been waiting there for months.
But the military and aid agencies both acknowledge that aid deliveries are treacherous, because family-based crime groups are robbing the trucks. An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines, estimated that 30% to 40% of aid supplies are stolen by members of criminal families.
COGAT spokesperson Shani Sasson said that the Israeli army has tried to secure part of the route and find alternate routes for drivers, but can't accompany each aid truck and the criminal groups are always moving.
Many aid groups that use the crossing now say it's too dangerous for their staff to collect aid. Baidoun, with MAP, said that drivers sometimes have to pay fees to move their aid from the crossing into Gaza.
He said that the Israeli military was “failing to provide an enabling environment to bring in sufficient humanitarian goods to Gaza.”
Aid groups also say their warehouses and workers have come under attack from Israeli forces. OCHA says that at least 326 aid workers have been killed since the start of the war. It's not clear how many have been killed while working.
Melanie Lidman contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.
FILE - Palestinians line up to receive aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Nusairat refugee camp, Gaza, on Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - An aircraft airdrops humanitarian aid over Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, May 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Hospital where displaced people live in tents, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Nov. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians line up for food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians are storming trucks loaded with humanitarian aid brought in through a new U.S.-built pier, in the central Gaza Strip, on May 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Trucks carrying humanitarian aid cross into the Gaza Strip from Erez crossing in southern Israel, on Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)
