9 hours ago
Yolande Nel, Middle East correspondent
BBC
When aid arrives in Gaza, it can pile up for days waiting to be collected.
On a sun-drenched stretch of the Israel-Gaza border, just miles from starving Palestinian families, hundreds of pallets loaded with food, from bags of rice to bunches of bananas, sit.
Israeli forces have observed a daytime pause in fighting on a stretch of road just beyond the main Kerem Shalom checkpoint for the past week, but humanitarian groups say they are still struggling to deliver vital aid to southern Gaza.
They denounce growing lawlessness that has made it too dangerous to receive or move goods.
“The looting has become quite severe,” said Georgios Petropoulos, the UN representative for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, who estimated that three-quarters of the goods in trucks entering through the checkpoint last Tuesday were stolen.
UN officials say vehicles are being systematically attacked and stopped by armed groups, particularly those smuggling cigarettes, which are sold at exorbitant prices on Gaza's black market. Trucks bringing fuel to Gaza have also been targeted in recent days.
Israeli military attacks have wiped out Gaza's Hamas government but there are no plans to fill the power vacuum. Few police officers remain serving in the Palestinian territories. It is unclear whether organized crime cartels have ties to Hamas or Gaza clans.
“Meaningful decisions must now be made about what will be done to secure Gaza and who will do it,” Petropoulos said.
During a media tour of Kerem Shalom, Kogat, the Israeli military official in charge of running the checkpoint, told reporters that there are no limits on the amount of aid that can be sent to Gaza. We passed through security and were shown a backlog of more than 1,000 truckloads of aid waiting to be picked up from the Gaza side.
“This is mainly because international organisations are not taking sufficient steps to improve distribution capacity,” Kogut spokesman Simon Friedman said.
He said the UN, the main provider of aid to Gaza, was suffering from a shortage of trucks and needed to “increase staffing, extend working hours and increase storage” as well as take other “logistical and organisational measures”.
Cogut spokesman Simon Friedman said aid agencies needed to improve their distribution capacity.
Israel has become increasingly critical of aid agencies after the International Court of Justice twice issued provisional measures during the war to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. The ruling came as a result of a South African lawsuit alleging Israel was violating the 1948 Genocide Convention, a charge it strongly denies.
The UN and aid groups have refuted claims of understaffing and inefficiency, pointing to the difficulties of operating in a war zone and saying Israeli bombing has damaged infrastructure and reduced capacity.
“We have recruited dozens of new staff and hundreds of volunteers to distribute relief supplies. We have delivered 28 million meals and 6 million medical treatments. [clearly] “There's talent available,” said Sean Carroll, president of American Association for Near East Refugees (ANERA).
But he said adding more workers would not help “when collecting supplies is too dangerous because of the war, when roads are impassable, when there is a shortage of fuel, trucks and parts inside the Gaza Strip.”
Anera welcomed the move, saying Kogat had committed this week to increasing truck imports to the Gaza Strip and that it was currently running an urgent campaign to purchase trucks.
But Carroll said the problem remains that “rules and procedures are arbitrary and constantly changing” when it comes to moving goods.
Aid groups have highlighted that Gaza's overstretched relief system collapsed in May when Israel launched a ground incursion into the densely populated southern city of Rafah, which it said was targeting the remaining battalions of Hamas fighters in the area.
The humanitarian crisis deepened as around one million Palestinians already displaced by fighting were forced to flee, while aid groups lost access to vital storage and distribution centres.
Since Israeli forces took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, Egypt has banned its use, saying it is no longer safe for humanitarian work. Aid and fuel are now being rerouted to Kerem Shalom.
According to UN figures, an average of 97 aid trucks entered Gaza per day in May, down 42 percent from the previous month. In the first two weeks of June, that number fell again to 89.
Food supplies incomplete across Gaza
In the nearby town of Khan Yunis, Gaza residents told the BBC that no international aid was currently arriving.
“When I was in Rafah, aid would arrive sporadically. I arrived here 20 days ago and have yet to see anything,” said Mahmoud Albis, who says he is struggling to feed his two children.
Locals say growing desperation has led to a vicious cycle in which people are looting arriving aid trucks, some of the donated goods such as sunflower oil and sugar being sold in market stalls.
“Now the country is in chaos, we don't get aid vouchers and when aid comes they steal it,” said a man named Hassan.
To make up for the shortages, Israeli authorities have begun allowing private buyers in Gaza to bring in supplies from Israel and the occupied West Bank. Unlike UN convoys, these trucks are accompanied by privately contracted armed guards to repel attacks, but many of the goods they bring in are out of reach for most Gaza residents.
Israel has opened three other crossings into the Gaza Strip, all of which deliver aid to the north of the strip, where the UN warns people are most at risk of famine.
International airdrops have all but halted but the sea corridor from Cyprus resumed on Thursday. The floating platform, installed by the US military at a cost of around $230 million (£182 million), has had a series of problems that OCHA's Petropoulos described as a “failure”.
The past week has highlighted Israel's political resistance to tackling severe food shortages in Gaza, which has created an unusual divide between the government and the military.
When asked about the “tactical pause” near the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, Israeli military spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari said the pause was introduced “to comply with cabinet orders to send humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
He has sought to downplay the strong backlash he has received so far, including from far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who suggested on social media platform “X” that increasing supplies to the Palestinian territories would benefit Hamas, keep it in power and “may undermine the gains of the war.”
A similar attitude has led to Israeli extremist groups attacking aid convoys heading to the Gaza Strip.
Sean Carroll of Anera says “political reasons” on the Israeli side are part of the reason it's difficult to get supplies into the territory. “Clearly there are problems, and if it was just a logistical problem it could be solved,” he suggests.
“We have to find a system that works, that is based on good faith and, ultimately, on trust in the UN,” said OCHA's Georgios Petropoulos.
In Khan Younis, men complained of feeling trapped and exhausted as they struggled to buy basic necessities for their families.
“The situation couldn't be worse,” said Mahmoud Albis. “I'm a refugee, alone with my two children, trying to survive. No one is on my side.”
