Hours after announcing that aid would be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip, which is under a tight siege, Griffiths said, “We have to start with a large number of trucks. We must reach a hundred trucks a day. This was the case with the aid program for Gaza before.”
Griffiths stressed that “we must obtain a guarantee that we can intervene on a large scale every day in a determined, repeated and reliable manner,” stressing that United Nations employees in the Gaza Strip, including 14,000 UNRWA employees, will then be able to distribute aid.
He continued, “Secondly, we must be able to reach people in complete safety,” recalling that international humanitarian law requires humanitarian organizations to distribute aid in locations where people consider themselves safe.
Griffiths, who has been in Cairo since Tuesday for talks with the Egyptian authorities, explained, “These are two things that need to be clarified and confirmed, and I hope this will happen in the coming days so that we can launch this basic aid program.”
Hundreds of trucks carrying thousands of tons of humanitarian and medical aid to Gaza are still waiting in front of the Rafah crossing from the Egyptian side to be allowed to enter the Strip.
Griffiths stressed that the United Nations will verify that the aid will only go to civilians and will not reach Hamas.
The residents of the Gaza Strip need water and food. They are also deprived of electricity and fuel due to the strict siege imposed by Israel after Hamas fighters infiltrated a number of Israeli towns on October 7, killing civilians and taking hostages before confronting the Israeli forces.
The war has since killed more than 1,400 people in Israel and 3,478 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them civilians from both sides.
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