A long line of trucks waited this Sunday on the Egyptian side of the crossing with Gaza, in Rafah, to go to the only two border crossings that Israel has opened for the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip: Kerem Shalom and Al Auja. Thanks to the ceasefire agreement that came into force on Friday, 400 Egyptian Red Crescent trucks with supplies and another 50 with fuel began to cross that border by mid-afternoon. An unspecified number of vehicles from other humanitarian organizations, such as the UN World Food Programme, also entered Gaza. Although it is unknown exactly how many of these trucks have entered the Strip, their number is close to those foreseen in the first phase of the agreement (600 per day and another 50 with fuel) without reaching it. Images have come from Gaza this day of Gazans perched on trucks with aid and celebrating their arrival with food packages in their hands.
Although these heavy vehicles with supplies are many more than those accessed before the ceasefire came into force, their content is still insufficient, however, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations have warned. They believe that a chasm separates the needs created by two years of Israeli offensive – with a declared famine in the north and 2.1 million people reduced to destitution – and the aid that has begun to arrive.
These supplies, Unicef spokesperson James Elder told the BBC, are “very far from what is needed.” Chris McIntosh, humanitarian response advisor for the NGO Oxfam in Gaza, recalled that the entry of supplies must have “a constant flow” that has not yet been achieved. A spokeswoman for the UN World Food Program assured on Saturday that the promised increase in the number of trucks “had not yet occurred.”
Humanitarian organizations have criticized, among other things, that the Israeli authorities have not yet eliminated, or at least softened, several of the obstacles that slow down the aid entry process. For example, the severe military inspection protocol for the contents of trucks.
The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu has also not ordered the opening of other border crossings – especially in the particularly devastated north – that were used in the past for the entry of goods and which it keeps closed. It would facilitate the distribution of aid, since vehicles would not have to overcome the obstacle course of traveling Gaza from south to north along its destroyed roads.
For the Unicef spokesperson, “what Israel has to do is very simple”: open “five or six border crossings” so that up to 1,000 trucks a day have “multiple entry points” into the Palestinian territory. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has also called for all border crossings into the Strip to be opened to allow “a normal flow of humanitarian aid” to Palestinians in need. On Friday, Israel had authorized UN agencies to deliver aid to the Strip starting this Sunday.
At the same time that aid increases and steps are taken to reestablish its traditional distribution system – executed by UN agencies and NGOs coordinated by the United Nations – the controversial project of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the opaque organization created by Israel with the support of the United States, appears to have begun its withdrawal from Gaza.
Images spread on social networks this weekend show the apparent dismantling of one of its delivery centers, while the other three are closed. They are located in the area from which the Israeli military has not yet withdrawn and where Palestinians are prohibited from entering.
In these four food distribution sites, 2,500 Gazans who were looking for food died, according to sources in the Gaza Strip government, controlled by Hamas. This shady organization intended precisely to become an alternative to the international aid system that operates under the coordination of the United Nations.
A question
One of the questions is whether Israel will hinder UNRWA’s participation in the distribution of aid in Gaza. Israel has sought to exclude that agency from humanitarian aid, not only in Gaza, but in the other occupied Palestinian territories, East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
After trying to link her to Hamas, without offering evidence, Israel banned her from working in East Jerusalem in January and its officials from having any contact with her. Although its local employees continue to work in Gaza, the agency has not yet managed to get a single truck into the Strip in the three days of ceasefire, says its spokesman, Jonathan Fowler.
Fowler explains by phone from one of his warehouses in Jordan that UNRWA is the humanitarian organization that has the most extensive distribution network in the Strip with its 12,000 employees. The spokesperson assures that his organization has “food to feed all Gazans for three months”, which Israel has prevented him from introducing, in its campaign to exclude it. For decades, the agency has centralized humanitarian assistance to Gazans, of whom more than 70% are refugees.
The humanitarian worker then highlights that the UN humanitarian coordination (OCHA) – which includes NGOs – has not participated directly in negotiating the humanitarian aspects of the ceasefire. The UN does know that it has been agreed to “allow, in principle, the entry of 170,000 tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” but its agencies do not know the details.
Fowler also highlights another aspect: the number of trucks entering the Strip does not tell the whole story.
Those 600 vehicles provided for in the agreement – the text does not mention them, but refers to the “minimum” stipulated in the previous ceasefire in January – are more or less those that entered the territory every day before the start of the Israeli offensive that turned two years old last Tuesday. The difference is that then the Strip had its agricultural fields intact – now 95% have been destroyed or are in areas occupied by the military – herds of livestock, working farms and around 4,000 fishermen working. Gaza was self-sufficient in part of its food.
“These trucks,” explains the UNRWA spokesperson, would now provide the “minimum essential to guarantee the survival of the population.” Added to this, he assures, “the criteria used by the Israeli authorities and the United Nations to count them are sometimes different.” Israel often required vehicles to be half empty, in order to facilitate inspection of their cargo. “If 100 trucks enter and Israel demands that they be half empty, how many are counted? 100 or 50?” this spokesperson asks.
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