The UN explained this Thursday, July 24, without knowing how many help loads were waiting for being distributed, not being authorized by Israel to be present at the crossing points.
The Israeli army refused to block humanitarian aid on Wednesday and said that 950 trucks were in Gaza and expected international agencies to distribute their charges.
“Despite our repeated requests, Israel has not authorized the UN to be present at the crossing points that are militarized areas. Therefore, we cannot verify the amount of supplies currently at the point of crossing,” reacted a spokesman for the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office (Ocha), Jens Laerke.
Israel “must facilitate humanitarian operations”
He also explained that the UN needed several authorizations: a first for the help to pass the border, where it will be deposited by trucks that then leave in Israel, followed by another authorization so that the UN trucks in Gaza can recover it.
“It is important to emphasize that it is not only a matter of rejected requests” but also of obstacles in the soil, he said.
Israel must give its “green light to trucks without unnecessary delay, allow the equipment to take multiple and safer routes, and order the troops that are kept away from the convoys and never shoot civilians along the assigned routes (or anywhere else),” said Jens Laerke.
The Ocha spokesman insisted that Israel, “as an occupation power and part of the conflict, must facilitate humanitarian operations until they reach people who need to survive.”
“If all the conditions are not in place, there can be no safe delivery and according to the principles (of the UN) on a large scale. Therefore, even when approved, these missions are often hindered in the ground,” he deplored.
Serious food, medicines and fuel shortage
Israel faces greater international pressure on humanitarian disaster in Gaza, where some 2.4 million Palestinians have been besieged since the beginning of the war, caused by an attack against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, 2023.
A total blocking imposed in March by Israel in Gaza and very partially relaxed at the end of May led to a serious shortage of food, medicines and fuel. Several senior representatives of UN agencies have warned that people “starve.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supported by the United States and Israel, which began to distribute food products at the end of May, said Wednesday that it has offered the UN and other international organizations to “deliver all its current help for free.”
The UN and the main help organizations refused to work with this foundation, saying that it violated the basic humanitarian principles. And the UN accused the Israeli army of having killed more than a thousand people seeking humanitarian aid on Tuesday, including the vast majority of which is close to GHF centers.
Source: BFM TV
