‘UN tells Israel it will suspend aid ops across Gaza without improved safety’
Washington: Senior UN officials have told Israel they will suspend aid operations across Gaza unless urgent steps are taken to better protect humanitarian workers, two UN officials say. A UN letter sent to senior Israeli officials this month said Israel must provide UN workers with direct communication with Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza, among other steps, the officials said.
They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations with Israeli officials. The UN officials say there has been no final decision on suspending operations across Gaza and that talks with Israelis were ongoing.
The UN World Food Program has already suspended aid delivery from a US-built pier in Gaza over security concerns. The organisation says that since Israel launched its ground operation into Rafah, aid delivery had declined by 67%, with over 50 WHO trucks stuck on the Egyptian side of the crossing into the southern city. Meanwhile, just three trucks were allowed into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Israel says it has allowed hundreds of truckloads of aid through the crossing, but says the UN has failed to pick it up. The UN says it is too dangerous for trucks to move through the area due to rampant lawlessness, despite Israeli pledges to carve out a safe corridor.
Israel’s war against Hamas, now in its ninth month, continues to face growing international criticism over widespread destruction in Gaza and a huge toll in civilian lives. Aid groups have regularly criticized the plan to deliver aid to Gaza by sea as ineffective and a distraction that has taken pressure pressure off Israel to open land border crossings that can deliver aid in larger numbers. The Israeli military’s ground offensives and bombardments, following Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, have killed over 37,600 people and wounded over 86,000 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Some 1.3 million people displaced from the southern city of Rafah, over half the strip’s population, now shelter in tents and cramped apartments in central Gaza.
And despite some increased aid into northern Gaza, experts say the enclave is at “high risk” of famine. Overcrowded hospitals struggle to keep the lights on due to lack of fuel and there are medicine shortages, while also sheltering many displaced Palestinians.
