Ahead through his windshield and behind in his rear view mirror, Mustafa al Qadri can see the rest of the long convoy heading for the Jordan Valley. We pass through a rocky land the color of sand that descends in the direction of the Dead Sea, towards Israel and finally towards Gaza.
First the convoy must pass through Israeli customs at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing. Then it goes to the Erez crossing into Gaza where the aid will be transferred to local drivers from the World Food Program.
Mustafa heads for a place where Israeli settlers have blocked roads and where, inside the war zone itself, criminal gangs are hijacking humanitarian aid trucks. But on this sunny winter morning, the driver is happy.
“We are carrying aid like food and medicine for our brothers in Gaza,” he says.
The word “brothers” keeps appearing in his answers. He is referring not only to common humanity or Arab brotherhood, but to the fact that so many Jordanians have Palestinian roots.
“Delivering this aid is a good deed. It makes me happy,” says Mustafa.
Drivers wave to onlookers and blow their horns. Gaza is a popular destination in Jordan. The noise competes with the sirens of the police escort, including two trucks with mounted machine guns. Of course, these companions will not cross into Israel, much less into Gaza.
This latest mission involves 120 trucks – the largest since the war began in October 2023. Jordan’s aid operation is a sign to Gazans that – at least by their neighbors – they have not been forgotten. Jordan’s leader, King Abdullah II, personally encouraged the Kingdom’s efforts to deliver food, medicine and fuel to Gaza.
The international community has promised an increase in aid once a ceasefire is established. “It is imperative that this ceasefire removes significant security and political obstacles to the delivery of aid across Gaza,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres. “The humanitarian situation is at a catastrophic level.” Ninety percent of the 2.2 million people in Gaza are displaced. Up to two million depends on aid.
This comes after 15 months of conflict in which the UN and aid agencies have accused Israel of repeatedly blocking or delaying the distribution of vital food, medicine and fuel. Israel denies it is withholding aid. But at one point the United States threatened to cut military aid to Israel because of the low level of aid reaching Gaza.
In Deir al Balah, central Gaza, a BBC journalist witnessed harrowing scenes of exhausted children fighting each other as they queued for food. Tired tempers are dispersed among the young people who come every day to get rice or bread to bring home to their families.
Ten-year-old Farah Khaled Basal from Al Zaytoun said she came so her nine siblings could be fed. A light, smiling child, she waited at the center run by World Food Kitchens, whose seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike last April. Farah’s family is separated from her father, who is in the north of the Gaza Strip. She told our reporter that she constantly dreamed of a ceasefire.
“I want to return to our home and to have my father back, and to have flour available to us.”
There were children of all ages in the line waiting to share the rice.
Lamees Mohammad Al Mizar’i is 16 years old and originally from Gaza City. Now he lives in a tent with eight family members. Lamees looks back, almost in disbelief, on his pre-war attitude towards food.
“I was picky, when my mom made cauliflower, I protested, ‘we eat cauliflower every day, I want another meal with meat or chicken,’ and now I eat everything, both good and bad. Animals don’t eat the food we eat.”
She explained how hunger creates family tensions.
“When I tell my mom that I won’t stand in line today, she says: ‘Then what should we eat? Should we continue looking at the sky?’ I have to come here, I kept thinking that if I don’t come, we won’t find anything to eat, in the past I used to think every day where to go out, what to study, when to go to bed. I had my own room, kitchen and I received guests.”
After taking her pot of rice, Lamees walks home, past the line of adults and children who have arrived in the kitchen. She mutters to herself, disappearing into the morning rush.
More aid is being prepared in Amman for delivery to Gaza. Jordan’s Hashemite Charity Organization says it could load 150 trucks a day to Gaza if given the go-ahead. There is no lack of will. Humanitarian agencies, the UN and other groups are ready. They – all of them – await the full opening of Gaza to aid and peace.
Additional reporting by Alice Doyard, Suha Kawar and Moose Campbell
