By Michelle Nichols and Emma Farge
UNITED NATIONS/GENEVA (Reuters) – Attacks by looters and armed gangs on aid convoys in the Gaza Strip could decrease as humanitarian aid floods into the area after a cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants came into force, the head of the UN’s Palestinian aid agency UNRWA said in Friday.
He said UNRWA has 4,000 aid trucks – half of which are food and flour – ready to enter the Palestinian enclave. The UN’s World Food Program said it has enough food ready to feed more than a million people for three months.
During the 15-month war, the UN described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic – facing problems with the Israeli military operation, Israeli restrictions on access to Gaza and all of Gaza, and recent looting by armed gangs.
“If we start flooding Gaza with aid … it could also ease, in fact, this kind of tension,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said. “But obviously we also need orderly, unhindered, unhindered access to people.”
On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, which was due to start on Sunday, and the release of hostages taken by the militants during their deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the current conflict.
The agreement is still subject to the approval of the full cabinet, which met on Friday afternoon.
Talks began in Cairo on Friday to agree on the details of implementing aid to Gaza under the ceasefire agreement. In addition to security in Gaza, the UN expressed concern over damage to roads, unexploded ordnance, fuel shortages and a lack of adequate communications equipment.
USAID Administrator Samantha Power said Friday that she hopes the increase in aid could create a stable humanitarian aid channel for Gaza. She said USAID has supplies ready to ship.
“We’ve sent a team from Washington to the region. They’re working on the modalities of how many more checkpoints can be open at one time, how hours can be extended, where trucks can be sourced from,” Power told MSNBC. .
AID TRUCKS
The deal calls for 600 aid trucks to be allowed into Gaza each day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 fuel trucks. Half of the 600 aid trucks will be delivered to northern Gaza, where experts warn famine is imminent.
“It is feasible, but it is unrealistic to believe that only the UN or humanitarian organizations would bring 600 trucks,” he told reporters. He added that commercial trucks should also be included.
Lazzarini also said that logistics capacity inside Gaza is limited, so it would help if bilateral aid could be delivered directly to its destination in the enclave.
UNRWA figures show that only 523 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza in January, down sharply from 2,892 in December. The aid is left on the Gaza side, where the UN takes it over and distributes it.
But gangs and robbers made it difficult. Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows that 2,230 aid trucks were transported – an average of 72 per day – while between January 1 and 5 the daily average was 51 trucks.
Israel devastated much of Gaza, and the pre-war population of 2.3 million people was repeatedly displaced. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the humanitarian situation as “catastrophic” on Wednesday.
Israel says Hamas killed about 1,200 people in an attack on October 7, 2023, and Gaza’s health ministry says more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war. The UN says 269 UNRWA staff in Gaza have been killed.
The World Health Organization plans to introduce prefabricated hospitals to support Gaza’s decimated health sector in the next two months, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory.
Currently, only about half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional, according to the WHO.
Peeperkorn said he expected the ceasefire to allow more medical evacuations for the more than 12,000 patients currently on the waiting list, about a third of whom are children. About half of the patients have injuries such as amputations and spinal injuries, he said.
