Humanitarian aid arrives in the Gaza Strip in quantities much smaller than those necessary to alleviate the catastrophe that is devastating the Palestinian enclave. When it has been a month since Israel announced its total blockade on Gaza to suffocate its more than two million inhabitants, in parallel with its devastating military offensive, diplomatic efforts have only managed to open an intermittent corridor for the delivery of supplies. essential supplies – limited to food, water and medicine – through the Rafah border crossing, between Gaza and Egypt. But the conditions imposed by Israel in exchange for guaranteeing the safety of humanitarian convoys continue to prevent a greater flow of aid, even though it is ready to leave, and are exposing the limits of the Egyptian umbilical cord.
Since the trickle of aid began flowing through Rafah on October 21, only around 700 trucks have been able to access Gaza, according to a count by the UN office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA). In the first half of the year, an average of 9,500 trucks entered per month. So the 700 vehicles in the last 20 days would cover the equivalent of 11% of the goods Gaza received before the war. This trickle implies increasingly acute difficulties for the inhabitants of the Strip in obtaining minimum rations of water and food to survive. Fuel shipments remain banned, and hospitals in the north of the enclave are having to perform complex operations, including amputations, without anesthesia, according to UN agencies. The Kerem Shalom crossing, between Gaza and Israel and the main entry of goods into the Strip before the imposition of the total blockade, remains closed.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated this Wednesday from Rafah that the aid that reaches the Strip is “scarce and with a very limited geographical scope.” Türk urged Israel, “as the occupying power,” to ensure that the most basic and vital aid can reach all those who need it, as the population remains “hugely vulnerable in all parts of Gaza.”
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, has warned that preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid may constitute a crime, and has stressed that Israel must ensure that Gazans receive food, water and medical supplies. The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, indicated on Monday that the aid that is arriving in Gaza through Rafah is “vital”, but acknowledged that this border crossing “by itself does not have the capacity to process the trucks.” of aid on the necessary scale.”
“The amount of aid coming in is a drop in the ocean of Gaza’s humanitarian needs,” agrees Mey El Sayeg of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). “Before this conflict, about 100 trucks of aid alone entered Gaza [al día]. So imagine now, with all the hostilities going on, if only this number comes in,” he slides.
Movement through the Rafah post was initially disrupted after Israel bombed the site three times in less than 24 hours after announcing its complete siege on Gaza, causing extensive damage to the Palestinian terminal of the crossing. From then until its partial reopening on October 21, Tel Aviv did not offer security guarantees so that any humanitarian aid convoy could cross it.
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In an attempt to press for aid to be allowed to be sent to Gaza, just three days after Israel announced its complete blockade of the Strip, Egypt designated El Arish international airport, 45 kilometers from Rafah, as a logistics center for receive supplies destined for the Palestinian enclave. Since then, shipments from multiple countries, UN agencies, the European Union and the Red Cross have landed on its runways.
Biden visit
The situation in Rafah began to unblock after a visit by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to Israel on October 18. That night, the Jewish State announced that it would continue not allowing the entry of humanitarian aid from its territory, but that it would not prevent aid from Egypt as long as it was limited to food, water and medicine for the civilian population in the south of the Strip. and that it did not reach Hamas or include fuel.
Reem Nada, a spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP) in Cairo, notes: “Negotiations for continued and sustained aid delivery continue, and many humanitarian partners, UN agencies and the Egyptian Red Crescent are working around the clock. so that it is so. But the green light for such a move is never guaranteed.”
With the exception of the first two, all convoys entering Gaza through Rafah since its reopening must first go to the Al Ouga-Nitzana crossing, between Egypt and Israel and 40 kilometers south of Rafah. There they are inspected by Israeli authorities at their border post terminal, and then return to Rafah to access the Strip. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Ministry unit in charge of coordinating civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories (COGAT) admits that “all supplies are inspected by Israeli security personnel before being brought into Gaza.”
Reem Nada, from the WFP, points out that they and other UN agencies and NGOs have “all kinds of humanitarian aid,” but regrets that they continue to have to “wait for the green light to enter Gaza.” Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian aid coordinator, has proposed setting up a quick, light and random inspection system, similar to that used between Turkey and north-west Syria, but his idea has not come to fruition. The number of trucks crossing Rafah has increased slightly since early November, but only exceeded a hundred on one day.
The slowness that this process is imprinting on the flow of aid is creating bottlenecks in El Arish, where large quantities of humanitarian supplies are stopped. Also abroad, since some countries, such as Qatar, have claimed to have stopped sending more shipments to Egypt so as not to overwhelm El Arish. And El Sayegh, from the IFRC, also notes that the expiration of food and medicine must be controlled.
89 UN workers have died in Gaza
The challenges also do not end once the humanitarian convoys cross Rafah, since there is no geographically delimited ceasefire within Gaza to distribute aid safely, as had initially been tested. So far, 89 workers from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have died in Gaza.
Furthermore, Israeli bombings have also caused significant damage to the roads connecting the Rafah crossing with the rest of Gaza, and Israeli authorities have explicitly prohibited the distribution of humanitarian aid in the northern Strip, whose residents they are trying to displace. forcibly towards the south of the enclave.
“These decisions should not be made by Israel; “It is not Israel that should decide how aid is distributed, but humanitarian actors,” considers Miriam Marmur, director of public advocacy at Gisha, an Israeli organization that ensures freedom of movement in Palestine, especially for residents of Gaza.
Temporary closures of border crossings had also been ordered in previous Israeli military offensives on Gaza, according to Marmur. But he notes that, in recent years, the escalations of violence were shorter and at times “some help” was allowed in. “[Ahora] “This is certainly an unprecedented situation in terms of how much time has passed and the completely hermetic closure,”
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