Aid flow to Gaza increasing, UN says, but more is needed
Under intense international scrutiny, Israel has expedited the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip this month, but humanitarian groups say that more is needed as severe hunger grips the enclave, particularly in the devastated north.
Israel’s efforts — which include opening new aid routes — have been acknowledged in the past week by the Biden administration and international aid officials. More aid trucks appear to be reaching Gaza, especially its north, where experts have warned for weeks that famine is imminent.
The increased levels of aid are a good sign, but it is too early to say that looming famine is no longer a risk, said Arif Husain, chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program.
“This cannot just happen for a day or a week — it has to happen every single day for the foreseeable future,” Husain said, adding that the main need was for more food, water, and medicine. “If we can do this, then we can ease the pain, we can avert famine.”
Aid groups have long complained that only a trickle of aid is entering the enclave, blaming harsh war conditions, strict inspections, and limits on the number of crossing points. Israel has maintained that the restrictions are necessary to ensure that neither weapons nor supplies go to Hamas.
But under pressure from President Biden after an Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, Israel announced this month that it would open more aid routes.
Aid has since reached Gaza through new avenues, including a partly functioning border crossing into northern Gaza and the Israeli port city of Ashdod, about 20 miles north of the enclave.
Infrastructure work is underway to make the northern crossing permanent and to open another nearby, said Shani Sasson, a spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories and liaises with international organizations.
Now, about 100 trucks a day are reaching the northern half of the strip through two main crossing points in the south, according to Israeli and US officials, compared with a total of 350 trucks during nearly the whole of March.
Flour shipments from the World Food Program have started to arrive at Ashdod, Husain said, which has increased the scale and efficiency of flour deliveries into northern Gaza in particular. Four bakeries reopened in Gaza City this month, in what the Israeli military called a sign of improving conditions.
The United Nations shared a video online that showed bags of flour piled high in bakery storerooms and Palestinian children clapping for an aid truck.
Defense Department officials said Thursday that Army engineers had begun construction of a floating pier off the coast of Gaza. The maritime route is expected to open in the coming weeks, and could help relief workers deliver as many as 2 million meals a day.
In addition, the Jordanian military and government have recently increased the amount of aid arriving in overland convoys, which travel from Jordan through the West Bank and across part of Israel before reaching southern Gaza border crossings. The Jordanian military carries out its own inspections. Government trucks are inspected by Israel.
Still, the amount of aid to actually reach Gaza has been disputed, with Israel and the United Nations using different methods to track truck deliveries.
Sasson says the number of trucks entering Gaza daily has doubled in recent weeks to a daily average of 400. But the United Nations has reported a significantly smaller increase. In the two weeks ending Thursday, the most recent day for which figures were available, it found an average of 189 trucks entering Gaza each day through the two main crossings in the south, though the number has fluctuated significantly.
Trucks screened and counted by Israel often enter Gaza only half full, according to UN officials, and sometimes it takes longer than a day for trucks to reach warehouses in Gaza, affecting the daily counts.
In addition to the discrepancies in aid totals, tensions are still simmering over Israel’s claim that 19 Palestinian employees of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, helped Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed. On Friday, the United Nations investigative office said it had closed the case against one employee, saying that Israel had provided no evidence to support the allegation against him.
In addition, four other cases against employees of UNRWA were suspended because the information provided by Israel was not sufficient for the United Nations’ internal oversight office to proceed with an investigation, the UN said.
The suspended cases could be reopened if additional evidence is presented, according to UNRWA, and more than a dozen staff members remain under investigation.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Accusations that UN workers were involved in the Hamas-led assault prompted a dozen countries to suspend billions in funding to the agency, which has been a vital lifeline for aid, water, and shelter for many in Gaza.
Germany, the agency’s second largest donor after the United States, has since said that it would resume funding for UNRWA, but US officials have not said whether they will follow suit.