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‘On the worst days, we’ve seen less than 10’ aid trucks a day enter Gaza
Alicia Phillips Mandaville, chief operating officer at the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), has said that aid is not getting into the Gaza Strip “at the levels that we need to see to meet really basic human needs”.
“Before October 2023, we were seeing over 500 trucks a day meeting the needs of the population in Gaza. The secretary’s [Antony Blinken’s] letter calls for 350 trucks, so that’s not even the total amount we were seeing before October of last year,” Mandaville told Al Jazeera, speaking from Ramallah.
In a letter signed by Blinken, Washington called on the Israeli government to institute a series of measures within a period of 30 days, including allowing a minimum of 350 trucks to enter Gaza per day.
“According to our counts, we’ve seen an average of 42 trucks a day, and on the worst days, we’ve seen less than 10. If you just do basic math, you can see the needs are not getting met,” Mandaville said.
‘People need everything’: UN says Gaza aid far from enough
The United Nations has warned that already low levels of aid trickling into Gaza have dwindled further, with the situation in the besieged north especially “catastrophic”.
The warning from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) came on the eve of a US-imposed deadline to improve humanitarian conditions in the besieged territory.
Asked about whether there were signs the situation had improved ahead of Wednesday’s deadline, Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA emergencies officer, highlighted that “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin last month cautioned Israel that it had until November 13 to let more aid into Gaza or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s primary supporter.
Speaking to a Geneva media briefing via video link from Gaza, Wateridge said that “the average for October was 37 trucks a day into the entire Gaza Strip… That is for 2.2 million people”.
“Children are dying. People are dying every day,” she said, stressing that “people here need everything”.
Ceasefires are the only answer: Norwegian Refugee Council
Jan Egeland, the NRC’s secretary general, has called for an immediate ceasefire in the region, saying, “We cannot wait another day for an end to this senseless violence”.
“For the sake of children across the entire region, diplomacy must result in a sustainable ceasefire.”
His comments came following his visit to Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
“The people I have met in recent days–from those in Gaza City, to the displaced in eastern Lebanon, to those crossing into Syria–longed for peace so they could return home,” he said in a statement.
“As Gaza has been reduced to rubble, Western leaders have largely stood by unwilling to apply the necessary pressure on the stronger party, Israel, to stop starving the population that they are besieging and bombarding.”
