GAZA – On Thursday, the UN warned
of an impending
famine in Gaza as strict Israeli restrictions continue to
prevent relief convoys from entering the Strip, reported Amad Media.
اضافة اعلان
The WHO believes that 93 percent
of the population is experiencing crisis-level hunger, also pointing out that
diseases are spreading rapidly. It also expects that the potential number of
victims who will die from disease and famine in the coming months could exceed
the number of people killed in the war so far, estimated at more than 24,000
people, most of them women and children, according to the latest statistics
issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
UN Secretary-General António
Guterres told reporters on Monday that “the humanitarian situation in Gaza is
beyond words... no one is safe. Life-saving relief does not reach those who
have endured months of continuous attacks anywhere near the required range.”
Relief agencies told the
Washington Post that the main factors that hinder the delivery of life-saving
aid to the people of
Gaza are almost entirely under Israeli control, where
Israeli inspection operations for aid convoys are still long and ineffective
and there are not enough trucks or fuel inside Gaza to distribute aid.
Large portions of Gaza remain
off-limits to relief workers, and regular wire and cellular communication
interruptions complicate their efforts.
Israel is heavily limiting the
entry of aid trucks, claiming that
Hamas seize UN aid trucks when they reach
Gaza. However, in an interview with the Post, a senior US official denied that
Israel provided any evidence of Hamas seizing any aid.
Additionally, relief workers and
truck drivers who spoke to the Post said that there are long and exhausting
inspection processes that take weeks to conduct prior to the entry of trucks.
There are also apparent logistical problems in transporting goods from trucks
at the Rafah Border Crossing. Palestinian trucks are unable to reach the
majority of the Strip as they suffer from fuel shortages.
Israel insists that it is “doing
everything in its power to alleviate the suffering of civilians.” Government
spokesman Eylon Levy said last week that Israel facilitated the delivery of
“more than 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid.”
“Israel has an exceptional
capacity to inspect and deal with trucks. There is no accumulation or
restriction on our part,” he added.
Every day, an average of 100 to
200 trucks pass through the
Rafah border crossing. Before the war, this number
reached about 500 trucks, many of which carried commercial goods. After the
outbreak of the war on October 7, 2023, Israel banned commercial trucks from
entering Gaza. The flow resumed in mid-December but was “limited and
intermittent,” according to the UNICEF office in Egypt.
Israeli inspection is complex and lengthy
While Egyptian and Palestinian
officials run the gates at the Rafah Border Crossing with Egypt, Israeli
officials must inspect everything before it can enter. Relief groups describe
this process as complex and time-consuming.
Egyptian truck drivers take their
cargo through a rough desert road to the Auja
Al-Hafir crossing between Egypt and Israel, a journey that takes about two hours,
according to Amir Abdullah, who oversees the convoys of the
Egyptian Red Crescent.
The inspection point is only open
during the day and closes after Friday and Saturday afternoons. Israeli authorities use dogs and scanning devices to
inspect the cargo of the trucks in a long line.
Relief workers say that materials
that include necessary clamps for childbirth operations, water desalination
equipment, power generators, oxygen tanks, and metal-columned tents are
sometimes rejected without explanation from Israeli authorities. When one item
on a truck is rejected, the process must be repeated on the entire truckload,
which can take weeks.
According to two Egyptian truck
drivers who spoke to the Washington Post, the shipments that are approved
return to the Rafah Border Crossing, where it takes days to transfer the
shipment to Palestinian trucks.
Relief workers also attribute the
delays to the shortage of Palestinian vehicles, some of which have been damaged
by Israeli strikes, and the lack of sufficient fuel for transportation,
according to Shameza Abdulla, the senior emergency coordinator at UNICEF.
Additionally, in the first two
weeks of January, humanitarian agencies were only able to carry out seven of
the 29 planned missions in northern Gaza, and the Israeli authorities refused
to grant permits to the rest, according to the
United Nations Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
There is no evidence of Hamas stealing aid – US senior
official
Israel has imposed restrictions on
fuel shipments, claiming that Hamas will steal fuel to operate its rockets, and
defended the hefty inspection process as necessary to prevent the smuggling of
illegal goods. Israeli officials also accused the UN, without evidence, of
turning a blind eye to Hamas’s widespread diversion of aid for its own benefit.
UN officials denied these allegations.
A senior US official, speaking on
condition of anonymity to the Washington Post, said, “The Israeli government
has not provided any specific evidence to the US government of theft by Hamas
or the diversion of aid provided through the UN and its agencies.”
Under US pressure, Israel opened a
second crossing, the Karem Abu Salem crossing, in December, where the
inspection process moves faster. The WFP also began sending convoys from Jordan
to Gaza via the
West Bank.
Steve Taravella, a senior
spokesman for the
WFP, said, “These are some good news, but it is important to
realize that this is not always a solution. We need to open all border
crossings to deliver aid faster.”
The WFP says that nine out of ten
people in Gaza eat less than one meal a day, pointing out the difficulty of the
situation with the cold winter.
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 adequate shelter.
Estimates also indicate that hundreds of thousands of people are still trapped in
the north.
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