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SvennoJ on 21 February 2024
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Satellite images show hundreds of trucks waiting at Rafah border crossing

According to the latest data from the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) only four trucks carrying vital humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Wednesday.

On average, 47 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza each day between February 9 and 15, a steep decline compared with 133 trucks per day the week before that, OCHA data also shows.

“Between 1 January and 15 February, less than 20 per cent of missions (15 out of 77) planned by humanitarian partners to deliver aid and undertake assessments in areas to the north of Wadi Gaza were facilitated by the Israeli authorities fully or partially and 51 per cent were denied (39 out of 77),” OCHA reports.

“Access of missions to support hospitals and facilities providing water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) services was among those overwhelmingly denied” by Israel, OCHA added.


This handout satellite image taken and released on Wednesday, by Maxar Technologies, shows trucks queueing at the Rafah border crossing, on Egypt’s border with Gaza


Hundreds of trucks carrying vital supplies can be seen waiting on roads leading to the Israeli-controlled checkpoint and in a holding area


Israeli authorities have closed most entry points into the Gaza Strip and tightly control what enters through the only two open crossings, both in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip

Brazil blasts UNSC ‘paralysis’ on Gaza at tense G20 meeting

Brazil has criticised the “paralysis” of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine at the opening of a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Launching the two-day meeting on Wednesday, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said the explosion of global conflicts shows international institutions such as the UN were not working, the AFP news agency reports. “Multilateral institutions are not properly equipped to deal with the current challenges, as has been demonstrated by the Security Council’s unacceptable paralysis on the ongoing conflicts,” Vieira said, adding the situation was costing “innocent lives”, according to AFP.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken were said to have had a “frank exchange” in their more than 90-minute meeting on Wednesday in Brasilia ahead of the meeting. Lula has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and compared Israel’s war on the Palestinian territory to Hitler during the Holocaust.

A senior US State Department official told journalists after the meeting that it was “made clear we disagree with [his] comments”. However, a State Department statement said only that Blinken had discussed with Lula “US engagement on the conflict in Gaza”, which included facilitating the release of Israeli captives, increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza, and that the protection of Palestinian civilians “improve”.

Protest in Fiji over government’s support for Israel at ICJ

Pro-Palestinian supporters in Fiji are protesting their government’s written statement in support of Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On Monday. Palestine’s legal representative Paul Reichler told the court that written submissions from Fiji and the United States were the “two outliers” in support of Israel.

“Of all the states that submitted written statements to the Court, only Fiji attempted to defend the occupation as lawful,” Reichler said.