The United Nations warns that famine looms in Gaza. The World Food Program estimates that 93 percent of the population faces crisis levels of hunger. The disease spreads quickly. The World Health Organization predicts that the death toll from disease and hunger in the coming months could exceed the number of people killed in the war so far — more than 24,000 people, according to the latest count from the Gaza Ministry of Health, the majority of them women and children. .
Aid agencies say the main factors hindering the delivery of life-saving aid to Gazans are almost entirely under Israel's control – Israel's aid inspection process remains long and ineffective; There are not enough trucks or fuel inside Gaza to distribute aid; Mechanisms to protect humanitarian workers are unreliable; Trade goods have just begun to flow.
Large areas of Gaza remain off-limits to aid workers. Frequent communications outages complicate their work. The war is still going on.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond words. “No place and no one is safe,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters on Monday. “Life-saving relief is not reaching people who have endured months of sustained attacks at any near level.” of the required size.
Israel insists that it is doing everything it can to alleviate civilian suffering. Government spokesman Elon Levy said last week that Israel had facilitated the delivery of “more than 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid.”
He added: “Israel has surplus capacity to inspect and process trucks.” “There is no backlog and no restrictions on our part.”
On average, between 100 and 200 trucks pass into Gaza daily. Before the war, this number was about 500, many of them carrying trade goods. After Hamas attacks on October 7, Israel banned commercial trucks from entering Gaza. Shiraz Shakira, of UNICEF Egypt, said the flow resumed in mid-December but was “limited and intermittent.”
Aid flowing into Gaza has primarily passed through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. While the gates there are manned by Egyptian and Palestinian officials, nothing can enter without inspection by Israeli officials. Relief groups describe this process as complex and time-consuming.
Amir Abdullah, who supervises Egyptian Red Crescent convoys, said that after initial Egyptian inspection, Egyptian truck drivers transport their cargo across a “bumpy desert road” to the Nitzana crossing between Egypt and Israel, a trip that takes about two hours.
The checkpoint is only open during the day and is closed on Friday and Saturday afternoons. Drivers wait in a long line of trucks for their turn to have their loads scanned by Israeli agents using dogs and scanners.
Aid workers say items, including delivery scalpels, desalination equipment, generators, oxygen tanks and tents with metal poles, have been rejected, sometimes without explanation from Israeli authorities. When one item on a truck is rejected, the entire truckload must repeat the process, which can take weeks.
The approved loads are returned to the Rafah crossing, where it may take several days for the goods to be transferred to Palestinian trucks, two Egyptian drivers told the Washington Post.
Aid workers attribute the delay to a shortage of Palestinian vehicles — some of which have been damaged by Israeli strikes — and not enough fuel to get around, according to Shamiza Abdullah, UNICEF's senior emergency coordinator.
Israel has restricted fuel shipments, claiming that Hamas would steal it to power its missiles, and has defended the inspection process as necessary to prevent the smuggling of illicit goods. Israeli officials also accused the United Nations without evidence Turn a blind eye Large-scale aid diversion by Hamas. UN officials denied these allegations.
A senior US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told the newspaper: “The Israeli government has not brought to the attention of the US government… any specific evidence of Hamas stealing or diverting aid provided through the United Nations and Israel.” Its agencies. a point.”
Under American pressure, Israel opened a second crossing in December at Kerem Shalom, where the inspection process is proceeding faster. The World Food Program also began sending convoys from Jordan to Gaza via the West Bank and Israel.
“This is some good news, but it is important to realize that it is not a permanent solution,” said Steve Taravella, a spokesman for the World Food Programme. “We need to open all border crossings to deliver aid faster.”
The United Nations agency says that nine out of ten Gazans eat less than one meal a day. And the cold of winter sets in.
More than a million people displaced by the Israeli attack are crowded into a small strip of land along the southern border with Egypt, most of them without proper shelter. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are stuck in the north. In the first two weeks of January, humanitarian agencies were able to carry out only seven of 29 planned missions in the north; The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the Israeli authorities refused to grant permits to the rest.
Video clips have spread on social media in recent days Displays Crowds in Gaza City rush towards aid trucks, then flee as gunfire rings out. The Post verified the location of the videos, but was unable to confirm when they were filmed.
“People are very hungry and desperate, so we have to provide police escorts for all our convoys, which limits the time we can move and the number of people we can move.” [vehicles] “We can send a convoy,” said Scott Anderson, deputy regional director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza.
Humanitarian officials stress that the war itself remains the biggest obstacle to delivering aid. They say Israeli air strikes and street battles make it impossible for workers to safely deliver supplies to people who need them most, and have hastened the collapse of Gaza's medical system.
“Our hospitals are exhausted,” said Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of emergency operations at MSF. “If you want to save lives, patients need to get to the hospital. Supplies need to get to the hospital.”
Aid workers told The Washington Post that channels to avoid conflict with Israeli forces are unreliable, adding that they cannot guarantee the safety of staff or their families. So far, 152 UN staff have been killed in Gaza, according to Guterres, “the largest loss of life in the history of our organisation.”
This month, Israeli munitions killed the 5-year-old daughter of a Doctors Without Borders employee in what was supposed to be a safe house, the organization said.
In response to a question about the incident, the IDF told the newspaper: “In stark contrast to Hamas’ deliberate attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate harm to civilians.”
Allegations that Israel is deliberately obstructing the flow of food and essential supplies into Gaza lie at the heart of the landmark genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Israel strongly denied what it called “false and baseless allegations.”
But in the face of growing international outrage, the Israeli agency responsible for liaising with aid organizations – known as Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT – unveiled a new website in English and Arabic this week detailing humanitarian aid and field hospitals. Enabled entry into Gaza.
The Unit for Coordination of Government Activities in the Regions also intensified its efforts Cash United Nations agencies, which Israel He blames Due to the slow pace of aid distribution.
“We are not perfect or infallible,” UNRWA's Anderson said. But the crossings are only open for long hours a day. …and in the days that… [Israeli officials] “They promise to send more trucks, but they don’t.”
UN agencies call on Israel to open the Erez crossing and other roads leading to Gaza and accelerate inspections. But if the war continues, humanitarian aid alone will not be enough to stave off famine, officials warn.
“Most important of all, what we really need is a ceasefire,” said Lucia Elmi, UNICEF Special Representative.
Heba Farouk Mahfouz in Cairo, Imogen Piper in London, Karen de Jong in Washington, and John Hudson in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
