Miami Herald

Little aid reaches the hungry, despite IDF pauses in Gaza

Days after the Israel Defense Forces announced it would reduce fighting along a key road in southern Gaza to allow more aid to get to desperate Palestinia­n civilians, more than 1,000 truckloads of supplies remain stranded at the border area. That is the result, aid officials and others say, of the extreme anarchy that has gripped the Gaza Strip in the ninth month of Israel’s military campaign.

The threat of looting and attacks by armed gangs has forced relief groups to stop delivering desperatel­y needed assistance in southern Gaza, aid officials say. Trucks using supply routes have been riddled with bullet holes. Businesspe­ople sending commercial goods into the territory and aid agencies have decided they cannot risk employees’ lives on the drive.

That has meant little humanitari­an benefit has been seen from the Israeli military’s decision to pause fighting for hours each day along the aid route. There are now thousands of tons of food, medicine and other supplies stuck on the Gaza side of a border crossing mere miles from Palestinia­ns who need them, the officials say.

The grim scenario is part of the domino effect of the Israeli campaign in Gaza, which has toppled much of the Hamas government without installing an alternativ­e. In much of Gaza, there are no police officers to prevent chaos, few municipal workers to clean up heaping mounds of rubble and trash and only the bare minimum of public services.

The aid is piled up at Kerem Shalom, an Israelicon­trolled border crossing into southern Gaza, according to the United Nations and Israeli authoritie­s. Since Israel’s military offensive in the southern city of Rafah shut down another crossing last month, Kerem Shalom has become the only conduit for aid into southern Gaza.

Farhan Haq, a U.N. spokespers­on, told reporters Tuesday that the Israeli announceme­nt of a pause “has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need.”

The “lack of any police or rule of law in the area” has rendered the roads surroundin­g the crossing highly dangerous, Haq said.

The number of internatio­nal aid trucks reaching Palestinia­ns in southern Gaza has plummeted since Israel’s Rafah offensive began on May 7. Only a small amount of aid has trickled through Kerem Shalom, aid officials say, including what a Western aid official said were 30 trucks sent via Jordan on Monday. Even the 1,100 truckloads stranded at the crossing – equivalent to what would have entered Gaza in just over two days before the war – represents a tiny fraction of what aid groups say is needed to stave off famine in Gaza.

Another border crossing, at Rafah on the Egypt-Gaza border, has remained closed since the Israeli operation began.

In an attempt to make up for the shortfall, Israeli authoritie­s began allowing more commercial goods to enter Gaza from Israel and the occupied West Bank. Unlike U.N. convoys, these trucks tend to travel with armed protection, allowing them to traverse the dangerous terrain.

Israel had paused commercial deliveries for about two weeks in an attempt to allow aid trucks to move through, according to a U.S. official working on the aid effort. But on Sunday, with no aid traveling along that road because of insecurity, Israel resumed sending the commercial trucks, 20 of which were sent into Gaza, the official said.