Days after Israel announced a daily pause in fighting on a key route to allow more aid to be delivered to Gaza, chaos in the besieged Palestinian territory has left vital supplies stuck and unable to be distributed in the searing heat.
More than eight months of war, which began with Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, has worsened humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and the United Nations has repeatedly warned of famine.
Frustration has grown among Gaza’s 2.4 million population as the fighting continues, with agencies warning they are unable to deliver aid.
Israel says it has started supplies and has asked agencies to increase supplies.
“The breakdown of public order and security continues to threaten humanitarian workers and operations in Gaza,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a briefing late Friday.
“The fighting, as well as criminal activity and the risk of theft and robbery, have effectively prevented humanitarian access to key locations.”
But Israel says it has allowed hundreds of aid trucks to pass through southern Gaza, and blames the United Nations for the increased aid burden.
It shared aerial footage of containers lined up on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing and more trucks arriving to increase stockpiles.
Hamas attacks on Israel in October killed 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also took 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, though the military says 41 have been killed.
Israel’s retaliatory strikes in Gaza have killed at least 37,551 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
The blame game
As civil order deteriorates in Gaza, the United Nations said it has been unable to take any supplies out of Kerem Shalom since Tuesday, leaving vital aid in limbo.
A deputy U.N. spokesman said this week that the crossing was “operating with limited functionality, including due to fighting in the area.”
William Schomburg, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Rafah, said arranging trucks was complicated, especially from the Egyptian side.
“It’s not just a question of civil order, but also the fact that you often have to cross warzones,” he said in an online briefing, adding that the area near Kerem Shalom has been hostile.
“There were even rockets fired nearby. So this whole area is particularly complicated to navigate, both for reasons related to hostilities and for reasons related to general security.”
Israel’s Coordinator for Civil Affairs in the Palestinian Territories, known as COGAT, said on Thursday that “1,200 aid trucks carrying material are waiting to be collected by UN aid agencies”, and said a lack of distribution was to blame.
Earlier in the week, COGAT spokesman Shimon Friedman told reporters that the daily blockade of Gaza’s southern road was in place to allow the UN to “collect and distribute more aid” alongside the Israeli military presence.
He said much of the aid has not arrived because “organisations have not taken sufficient steps to improve their delivery capacity.”
‘No help visible’
Aid agencies have instead pointed to Israel’s assault on the southern city of Rafah, which led to the evacuation of more than a million people and the closing of border crossings with Egypt, as a deepening humanitarian crisis hampering relief efforts.
Schomberg described the city of Rafah as a “ghost town”.
“It’s a ghost town because there are very few people to be seen, the level of destruction is so high, and it’s really just another symbol of the tragedy that has gripped Gaza over the last nine months,” he said.
The UN food agency has said its aid convoys have been looted by “desperate people” inside Gaza.
As the two sides remain at a stalemate, the citizens of Gaza are paying the price.
“We don’t get any aid. All the food we get comes from our own money and it’s all very expensive,” said Umm Mohammad Zamlat, 66, from northern Gaza who is now living in Khan Younis in the south.
“Even agencies that specialise in delivering aid are not able to give us anything,” he said.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders said on Friday that six trucks carrying 37 tonnes of supplies, mostly essential medical items, have been stuck in the Egyptian part of Kerem Shalom since June 14.
“This is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” it said in a statement.
“It’s like asking a fireman to watch a house full of people burn and then being prevented from putting out the fire.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
