The United Nations will assess on Thursday how it can use an Israeli military road along the border with the Gaza Strip to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians in the northern Palestinian enclave, a senior UN aid official said. .
The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are on the brink of starvation.
Jamie McGoldrick, UN aid coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the UN has been pressuring Israel for weeks to use the Gaza border fence road and has received more cooperation from Israel in the last week.
Palestinian authorities say more than 100 people were killed last Thursday trying to reach an aid convoy near Gaza City, most of them shot at by Israeli troops. Israel's military, which had been overseeing private aid deliveries, said most of them died as a result of the stampede.
“Since last week’s incident, I think Israel has clearly seen how difficult it is to deliver assistance,” McGoldrick told reporters, adding that the UN had seen “a lot more cooperation from Israel as a result of that realization.”
Currently, aid can reach Gaza from the south through the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. McGoldrick said the plan is for aid convoys to be inspected at these crossings and then escorted through Israeli territory along a military road to the Israeli border village of Beeri.
“Once we enter Gaza, we will be left to our own devices,” he said, adding that the UN would carry out an assessment of the possible new route on Thursday to check the status of the roads inside Gaza, to ensure that there are no unsafe ordnance material. detonated and to identify suitable distribution points for aid.
McGoldrick said using this route to reach northern Gaza would allow aid convoys to avoid congested roads and insecurity within the enclave. The UN World Food Program halted its deliveries to northern Gaza on February 20 due to security concerns, with its convoys exposed to attacks from hungry mobs.
McGoldrick said other aid avenues — including the port of Ashdod in Israel and air deliveries from the United States and Jordan — were “useful but will not meet the significant needs, which can only be met by road transportation.”
The UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said that in February an average of about 97 trucks were able to enter Gaza per day, compared with about 150 trucks per day in January — well below the target of 500 trucks per day. .
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said Wednesday there are no limits to the amount of aid that can enter Gaza, urging donors: “Send the aid, we will receive it.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages, according to an Israeli count. Israel retaliated, initially imposing a “total siege” on Gaza and launching an air and ground attack that has since killed some 30,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-ruled enclave.
Source: CNN Brasil
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