Gaza’s hungry await aid despite convoy deaths amid dispute over supplies
GENEVA/JERUSALEM — Crowds of men ran through rubblestrewn Gaza City streets past fires and bullet-riddled cars in hope of reaching a rare aid convoy, risking their lives to get food for starving families as famine looms five months into Israel’s military campaign.
Aid delivery in the Palestinian enclave has collapsed, with only a fraction of the food needed getting in and very little reaching the northern areas where hospitals say children have started dying of malnutrition. Last week the Palestinian health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli forces killed 118 people trying to get aid from a convoy near Gaza City with survivors saying they were shot at. Israel said most of those killed were trampled or run over during a panic.
The deaths drew a new focus on what has gone wrong with aid in Gaza, where the United Nations (UN) complains of “overwhelming obstacles,” while Israel says it is doing all it can and that the UN is ultimately responsible for delivery.
“Is there a father in the world who can see his children writhing in hunger in front of him and remain silent, even if the price is risking his life?” said Ahmed al-Talbani, looking for the aid in Gaza City, shouting and gesticulating as he spoke in a video obtained by Reuters.
“Trucks have crushed people, tanks crushed people, shells rained down on people, machine guns were fired over people’s heads. Does this satisfy anyone,” he said.
Despite hunger approaching catastrophic levels in parts of Gaza, and large quantities of aid sitting waiting in warehouses to be delivered, the flow of supplies has slowed to a trickle.
Before the conflict, Gaza relied on 500 trucks entering daily. The Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said on Friday that during February an average of nearly 97 trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, compared with about 150 a day in January.
One big problem is insecurity inside Gaza, as five months of war have destroyed many of the institutions that underpinned social order in the enclave.
Some convoys have been seized by people seeking food, and any convoys moving into northern Gaza require Israeli coordination for safe conduct through checkpoints and areas with fighting.
The UN has repeatedly complained about lack of access and says Israel is responsible for facilitating aid delivery.
“All we are asking for is safe passage so that we can deliver aid,” said Jenny Baez, emergency response officer at UNRWA, the main UN agency working in Gaza. Israel has accused UNRWA of complicity in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war, which UNRWA denies.
Palestinian police, who previously helped secure routes, have stopped doing so after Israeli strikes killed at least eight of them, UNRWA has said.
AIR DROPS
Shimon Freedman, the spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli military branch that handles aid transfers, said it provided coordination for convoys, facilitating tactical corridors, and embeds officers with trucks to ensure passage.
However, he said distribution and security were ultimately up to aid agencies and the United Nations. “The security of the convoys themselves are the responsibility of the UN agencies operating on the ground,” he said.
With land routes into Gaza hard to access, countries including the United States have started doing air drops, which Mr. Freedman said Israel supported.
Parachutes holding large crates of aid drifted down towards a Gaza beach early on Tuesday, Reuters video showed. —