This article is published in association with United Nations.
A relentless siege, deadly targeted attacks and chronic restrictions on lifesaving aid deliveries into the war-torn Gaza Strip by Israeli forces: that’s just some of what aid workers are grappling with as they try to provide the level of lifesaving assistance needed to stave off widespread famine and epidemics in the strip.
UN News looked at the needs triggered by the ongoing conflict through a lens of how much aid is getting into Gaza compared with what is required to address the grim situation on the ground, where 2.3 million Palestinians are trapped amid an ongoing war that began almost one year ago following Hamas-led attacks that left more than 1,000 people dead in Israel and 250 taken hostage.
Now they are grappling with rampant hunger, the spread of disease, vast destruction, a decimated healthcare system, water and sanitation infrastructure and a severe lack of basic necessities.
Here’s the latest:
Delivery cuts to Gaza
The only way into the besieged occupied Gaza Strip, surrounded by Israel to the north and east and Egypt to the south, is through Israeli-controlled borders.
Before the war, about 500 trucks entered Gaza daily, carrying commercial goods and humanitarian aid, and the number has since drastically plummeted. In August, only 1,559 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom and Rafah border crossing even when a famine alert was declared in parts of the strip this summer.
Between 1 and 15 September, of the 94 planned humanitarian missions coordinated with the Israeli authorities for northern Gaza only 37 (or 39 per cent) were facilitated. A total of 25 (or 27 per cent) were denied access, according to the latest situation update from the UN humanitarian coordination agency, OCHA.
In southern Gaza, out of 243 coordinated humanitarian movements, Israeli authorities facilitated only 129 – or 53 per cent – while denying access to 41 of them (17 per cent).
OCHA cited ongoing hostilities, access constraints and damaged infrastructure along with the deteriorating security situation, including looting and frequent Israeli-issued evacuation orders as key factors “obstructing the delivery of lifesaving aid across the Gaza Strip”.
Israel says its aid efforts are ‘unparalleled’
While top UN officials have repeatedly issued pleas for unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance, Israel’s representatives are saying it is providing ample aid to those civilians trapped in the strip.
Israeli ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Danny Danon said Israel’s humanitarian efforts have been “unparalleled”.
“We have facilitated more than one million tonnes of aid, including 800,000 tonnes of food aid,” he told reporters at a stakeout at UN Headquarters on Monday. “We have made it clear that we are more than willing to work with cooperative agencies.”
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UN Special Coordinator: Delays cost lives
Tasked with establishing a UN mechanism for accelerating the provision of humanitarian relief consignments in Gaza, UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator Sigrid Kaag said she and her team have had constructive meetings with Israeli authorities at the highest levels, but the need for aid at scale in Gaza remains ever more urgent.
“It’s not about trucks; it’s about what people need in its totality as fellow human beings,” she said at UN Headquarters on Monday.
“We look at the number of trucks daily…that we can retrieve and distribute,” she explained. “There is an ongoing discussion with Israel authorities about their numbers, [about] some…supplies at border crossings. It doesn’t really matter if it’s at the border. It has to be in Gaza. It has to be distributed.”
What matters is the percentage that gets in, she said. In that regard, she warned that “we are way, way off what people need.”
In her latest Security Council briefing earlier on Monday, she cautioned that delays in aid deliveries can cost lives.
Too many obstacles
Deliveries linked to the recent UN-led emergency polio vaccination campaign demonstrated that lifesaving aid can indeed enter the strip in a timely manner, but aid agencies on the ground are reiterating that not enough aid is getting in.
“Constraints by the Israeli authorities on the entry of essential supplies are particularly harmful for children, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems and are increasing stress and anxiety in overcrowded shelters,” according to a group of aid agencies who issued an urgent plea last week for health supplies, including soap and detergent to prevent the spread of diarrhoea and diseases.
Other agencies have echoed that call, with the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, warning on Monday that the sanitation disaster in Gaza is “worsening by the day”.
OCHA has reported aid convoys are being fired on or otherwise exposed to life-risking conditions, stopped and delayed for hours in combat zones. The World Food Programme (WFP) was forced to suspend operations when Israeli forces fired on its aid convoy. To date, more than 200 UN staff have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza.
Some UN staff working in the strip are fearful of further attacks, Sam Rose, Deputy Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, told UN News.
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Urgent needs, from soap to shelter
Inter-agency efforts are targeting needs through designated cluster groups, from healthcare to emergency shelters.
Humanitarian actors specialising in health, water, sanitation and hygiene published an urgent call on the lack of access to soap, shampoo and detergent to combat diarrhoea and skin infections in Gaza, according to OCHA.
Shelter is another challenge. As of Monday, more than 55 evacuation orders remain in effect, covering about 86 per cent of Gaza, OCHA said, adding that Israel’s ongoing issuance of such measures without ensuring that those displaced have safe and adequate places to stay is worsening the humanitarian crisis for hundreds of thousands.
The shelter cluster of aid operations has reported that 1.13 million people need emergency kits for makeshift shelters or tents and 1.34 million people need bedding kits, the UN humanitarian agency reported.
At least 25,000 “sealing-off” kits (to upgrade short-term shelters), or 25 truckloads, need to be delivered per week to south Gaza for civilian use, before more significant rainfall and lower temperatures arrive in November.
With an average of only two truckloads of shelter-related items per week entering south Gaza in August, partners would need two years to deliver the equivalent of the most basic winterisation support needed now, according to an inter-agency initiative led by UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
No access to northern Gaza
Urgent needs persist in the northern strip, but OCHA has not been able to access the area for 28 days, the agency said on Monday.
“Israeli access denials or impediments alongside other obstacles are preventing humanitarian missions to assess needs, to coordinate response, to take supplies and to prepare for the rainy season in the north,” OCHA stated.
The limited access to northern Gaza continues to affect hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people, leaving them in dire conditions with a severe shortage of essential supplies and restricted access to basic services, according to the agency.
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