Aid flow into Gaza still ‘not enough’, must be ‘expanded’, ‘sustained’: UNRWA official
Israel’s limited steps to allow aid into Gaza are welcome but not enough to reverse the extreme shortages it intentionally “manufactured”, says Sam Rose, acting director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza.
“This has clearly been part of an approach of manufactured starvation over several months,” Rose told Al Jazeera.
“First of all, you [Israel] limit the supply of aid coming in, or you completely block it. Second, you criticise the organisations whose job it is to provide that aid, the UN organisations – whose job, of course, is made far more difficult by the controls that Israel imposes.”
“And then the next stage of this is to frame humanitarian aid itself as part of the problem,” he continued. “And that’s the dynamic we’ve been facing over the past few weeks in which countless children have died of malnutrition.”
Rose added that while “we very much welcome these initial steps to increase the flow of aid”, he said it is “not enough”.
“They need to be expanded, they need to be sustained, and they need to be accompanied by a ceasefire because that’s the only thing that’s going to stabilise things for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of desperate people in Gaza.”
Israel claims 120 truckloads of aid distributed, hundreds more waiting
In a post on X, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is responsible for coordinating aid into Gaza, said 120 aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday and were distributed by the UN and international aid agencies.
COGAT, which has repeatedly and baselessly tried to blame UN logistics for contributing to aid shortages, claimed 180 more truckloads have entered and are now “awaiting collection and distribution”, with hundreds more lined up at the border.
The Israeli figures come after UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said yesterday that more than 100 aid trucks entered Gaza, a number he said still falls far short of what’s needed to “stave off famine”.
Aid deliveries to Gaza ‘still a drop in the ocean,’ UN humanitarian chief says
Israel’s decision to allow more aid into Gaza has been welcomed by the UN, but officials warn that severe restrictions continue to block life-saving deliveries.
“This is a welcome step in the right direction,” Tom Fletcher, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told Al Jazeera. “But clearly, we need to get in vast amounts of aid at a much, much greater scale than we’ve been able to do so far.”
While more aid trucks entered Gaza yesterday, Fletcher described the overall delivery as “a drop in the ocean”.
“We can’t just simply turn up and drive through. That’s what we should be allowed to do, that’s what international law demands, but we’re not yet at that point,” he said, citing ongoing security risks, closed crossings, visa rejections and customs delays.
“There’s massive starvation in Gaza,” Fletcher warned. “We’re mobilised to deliver as much as we can … but we’ll judge this by results.”
