Thousands of aid trucks loaded with lifesaving food, water and medical supplies are lined up outside Gaza, and hundreds more inside the border. A handful of miles away, a third of Gaza’s population is on the brink of starvation, with a surging number dying of malnutrition. Why is it so hard to get aid into the enclave?
The Israeli military, which manages the entry of all aid into the besieged enclave, says it has allowed in an average of 70 trucks a day since May, but that the U.N. and other aid agencies have failed to distribute it.
This number is already far fewer than the hundreds of trucks necessary to feed the population, aid agencies say, and that crossing the border into Gaza is just one hurdle in a broken distribution chain obstructed by complex bureaucratic processes, civil disorder and deadly shootings.
“The Kerem Shalom is not a McDonald’s drive through where we just pull up and pick up what we’ve ordered,” Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesperson, told reporters Wednesday, referring to the primary aid crossing from Israel into Gaza. “There are tremendous security impediments.”
“And, frankly, I think there’s a lack of willingness to allow us to do our work,” Dujarric added.
The debate among Israeli leaders has included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying in May that Israel cannot let Gaza sink into a famine for “practical and diplomatic reasons,” while other officials like Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, have called for aid distribution to be entirely suspended.
“The humanitarian aid currently entering Gaza is an absolute disgrace,” Ben Gvir said on X in June. “What is needed in Gaza is not a temporary halt to the ‘humanitarian’ aid, but a complete halt to it.”
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour struggled to hold back tears Wednesday while addressing the Security Council. “The images of mothers embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair, talking to them, apologizing to them. This is unbearable.”
How does aid distribution in Gaza work?
Israel controls almost every part of the aid distribution process. In its most basic form, all entering aid first arrives at one of the border crossings, where it is inspected by the Israeli military. If a truck is approved, it enters Gaza and unloads its cargo. A separate network of trucks within the enclave then picks up the supply for distribution to humanitarian sites, where it is picked up by Palestinians.
In practice, however, the process is complicated by chaotic and often obstructive conditions on the ground.
Israel says it does not limit the number of trucks that enter Gaza, though thousands of trucks outside the border have not been allowed in.
Col. Abdullah Halabi, Israel’s Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza, reiterated on Thursday that the border crossing is not the bottleneck, rather, “It is the collection issue that is preventing the continuous delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.”
Aid agencies say they would like to deliver aid, but that Israel has riddled the process with delays and denials, changing schedules and routes, sometimes at the last minute, making it difficult or impossible to safely retrieve the aid for distribution.
Half of the 138 requests the World Food Programme made in the last week to collect aid from holding sites were denied, the agency said Friday.
Even after being approved to load the aid, WFP said “convoys are typically delayed,” and take as much as 46 hours before receiving the final approval to travel along the Strip.
Israel has long maintained that the restrictions are in place to prevent Hamas from stealing the food, though an internal U.S. government analysis cited by Reuters has found no evidence that there was systematic theft of the supplies by Hamas over the past 20 months.
WFP on Friday said it had 300 trucks of aid waiting to be distributed inside Gaza, and UNRWA said it had about 6,000 aid trucks in Jordan and Egypt also waiting to be approved.
“Allow the U.N., including UNRWA & our partners to operate at scale & without bureaucratic or political hurdles,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, said Saturday in a post on X.
Lazzarini also slammed Israel for allowing aid airdrops by foreign countries, calling it a “distraction & screensmoke.” A previous effort to air drop aid in March last year proved insufficient for feeding the population, as humanitarian agencies warned at the time.
Delayed convoys
Each delayed convoy means more and increasingly desperate people gathering along known aid delivery routes, waiting to intercept incoming trucks. This has led to people ambushing the aid trucks, which agencies say poses a danger to their workers.
“During these delays crowds of hungry people often anticipate the arrival of our trucks and gather along the expected transport routes which are too few,” the WFP said.
Israeli troops have fired at gathering crowds, and the number of people killed in these separate but regular incidents have totaled to over 1000, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday. Incidents near the distribution sites run by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation have been particularly violent.
Um Saeed Al-Reefi had walked to a distribution site near Rafah on Thursday, and spoke to NBC News’ team on the ground, still holding her empty bags.
“I just want to feed my daughter something. But they attacked us—pepper spray, bullets, gas. I couldn’t breathe. I ran for my life. I came back, as you see… empty-handed,” she said. NBC News has not independently verified her account of the attack.
On Friday, at least 16 people were killed northwest of Gaza City while waiting for aid, Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Health Ministry told NBC News.
“What is missing right now is safe, sustained access,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday. “Workers face constant danger, crossings are unreliable, and critical items are routinely blocked,” it said.
Aid distribution in Gaza has not always been this deficient, or fatal.
Last year, when aid was being let in through Rafah crossing along the Egyptian border, delivery, though sparse, was regular and U.N. agencies, primarily UNRWA, were able to distribute aid without widespread attacks or looting.
Gaza’s police force was also more present and provided security, but months of Israeli bombing have crippled the police and increased desperation among the public.
Great Job Mithil Aggarwal | NBC News & the Team @ NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth Source link for sharing this story.
